Exchange Messaging Outlook
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Greetings! Welcome to Vol. 7, No. 8, 26 Sep 2002, of Exchange Messaging Outlook, a biweekly newsletter about Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook. Today's highlights:
Regular features:
Outlook 2002 post-SP2 hotfixes Office XP Service Pack 2 is only a month old, but already there are hotfixes for it. Microsoft has fixed the issue we reported in the last issue of EMO, where POP users on Windows XP were experiencing frequent crashes. The Microsoft Knowledgebase article "OL2002: Outlook Stops Responding When You Download a Message After You Apply Office XP Service Pack 2" at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q329349 describes the problem and offers patches for Outlcm.dll and Outlook.exe. Note that this fix does not change the version number that you see on the Help | About dialog in Outlook. The second fix is for developers writing code that attaches files to plain text messages. The article "OL2002: An Extra Signature Is Added When You Insert an Attachment Programmatically" at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q327595 describes the problem and the patch. This fix also includes the POP download fix from Q329349, described above, and updates the version number to 10.0.4510.0. These hotfixes are available only through Microsoft Support, but you shouldn't be charged for an incident if you confine your issue to just the one listed in the KB article. One question many people have asked is how SP2 could have shipped with such a big problem in it. My own experience is that the crashes were not all that easy to reproduce. They apparently affect only users with POP accounts running on Windows XP. On my own desktop system, I didn't start seeing symptoms until I had left Outlook running for several days straight. Perhaps that's something that Microsoft needs to include in its testing regimen -- leaving machines running for several days with automatic send/receive turned on. Outlook Express has attachment security I don't usually write about Outlook Express in EMO, but I think it's worth noting that the latest update for OE turns on file attachment blocking by default. This has triggered a flood of newsgroup messages from bewildered and frustrated OE users. Strangely enough, while it takes a registry change to loosen attachment security in Outlook 2002, OE users only need to go to Tools | Options | Security and clear the box for Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus. How this all-or-nothing feature is supposed to provide attachment security escapes me. If attachment blocking is important -- as Microsoft seems to think it is in Outlook -- why wouldn't OE have a registry entry like Outlook 2002's to allow users to unblock just those specific file types that they really need? In any case, the lesson here for Outlook users is that the number of recipients with attachment blocking continues to grow. Even if you can send an .exe or other possibly blocked file, that's no guarantee that the person receiving it will be able to easily open the file. It's a good idea to either compress potentially dangerous files into .zip files or change the file extension before sending someone a file that might be blocked by the recipient's mail program (or by their mail server). Office PIAs for Visual Studio .Net Microsoft has finally released official primary interop assemblies for use with .NET languages. You can download these from http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/sample.asp?url=/MSDN-FILES/027/001/999/msdncompositedoc.xml and should use these official PIAs instead of the assemblies that Visual Studio .NET generates at design time. Be sure to read:
The Micro Eye resource page at http://www.microeye.com/resources/res_outlookvsnet.htm also includes other key references for .NET developers working with Outlook. New message management tools What a coincidence! In just the past two days, I've run across two new Outlook tools that address long-standing deficiencies in the program's ability to organize mail messages. QuickFile, from http://www.addins4outlook.com/QuickFile/default.htm, automates the process of refiling a message into a specific folder after you send it or read it. AutoRead for Outlook, from http://www.techhit.com/autoread/, is a Rules Wizard custom action that marks as read messages meeting your criteria. What sets it apart from the "mark as read" rule action that Outlook 2002 includes and from the earlier MarkRead custom action is that it can also turn off the envelope icon in the system tray. |
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New Utilities |
AUTOREAD FOR OUTLOOK http://www.techhit.com/autoread/ Custom action for Rules Wizard to mark messages that meet certain criteria as read and suppress the new mail indicator in the system tray. DUPEDUSTER EZDETACH FOR OUTLOOK OUTLOOK-QUOTEFIX OUTPOD QUICKFILE XENOS OUTLOOK XP FILE RESTRICTION EXTENSION |
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Updated utilities |
CHRISTIAN LITURGICAL CALENDAR http://www.hlyspirit.org.uk/calendar.php Daily common lectionary readings and other calendar information from Advent 2002 until Advent 2003, for import into Outlook, Lotus Organizer, or PDAs. DIRECTORY TRANSFORMATION MANAGER MAPINOTIFY: SHADOW OF POWER! NELSON EMAIL ORGANIZER |
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Other new resources |
APPLICATION ANALYZER FOR LOTUS NOTES http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/techinfo/interop/AppAnalyzer.asp Data collection tool to gather information about Notes application usage and database structures, which can then be analyzed by a Microsoft Certified Partner or Microsoft Consulting Services as the first step toward a migration strategy. OFFICE XP PRIMARY INTEROP ASSEMBLIES |
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More Information |
ISSN 1523-7990 |
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Updated Jul 30 2006
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