Exchange Messaging Outlook Volume 7, Number 12

Greetings! Welcome to Vol. 7, No. 12, 14 Nov 2002, of Exchange Messaging Outlook, a biweekly newsletter about Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook.

• Office 2000 Service Pack 3
• Customize attachment blocking in SP3
• Potential NewInspector issues in SP3
• New registry options in SP3
• New Microsoft Knowledgebase syntax
• Welcome OutlookCode.com members

Office 2000 Service Pack 3

Microsoft yesterday released Office 2000 Service Pack 3 (SP3). This set of patches updates Microsoft Outlook 2000 with the latest fixes and establishes a new baseline for all future hotfixes for Outlook 2000. It will update any Office 2000 program on your system, even if the only one you have installed is Outlook 2000.

Users who shunned Service Pack 2 because of its security features when it was released two years may want to consider SP3, which provides a registry setting to unblock certain attachment file types that Microsoft considers dangerous. (More details below.) SP3 is still subject to the "object model guard," which may inhibit the operation of programs that make use of Outlook data and try to send Outlook messages.

SP3 requires Office 2000 Service Release 1/1a, but you do not have to install SP2 first. For more information on where to get SP3, what's fixed, and how to install it both on a client and on an administrative install point, see our full report at http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2000sp3.htm.

Customize attachment blocking in SP3

The hot new feature in SP3 is the ability for Outlook 2000 users to customize the attachment blocking that Microsoft added in SP2, with the same documented registry entry that Outlook 2002 uses. As always, when making a change to the registry, make a backup first. Then follow these steps:

Outlook 2002 and Outlook 2000 SP3 (but not Outlook 98 or earlier Outlook 2000 versions) allow the user to use a registry key to open up access to blocked attachments. (Always make a backup before editing the registry.) To use this key:

1. Run Regedit, and go to this key:
   
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook\Security
   
   (Note that the key for Outlook 2002 uses 10.0 instead of 9.0.)

2. Under that key, add a new string value named Level1Remove.

3. For the value for Level1Remove, enter a semicolon-delimited list of file extensions. For example, entering this:
   
   mdb;url
   
   would unblock Microsoft Access files and Internet shortcuts.

If you prefer not to edit the registry yourself, keep an eye on http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/esecup/getexe.htm, where we'll post information about updates to the various utilities that can help you manage this setting.

We recommend that you use this feature sparingly and with great care, unblocking only those attachments that you absolutely must see.

Adding a file type to the Level1Remove value moves it to Level 2, which will still require you to save the file to disk before opening it. End users cannot remove a file type from Level 2. That is possible only for Exchange administrators using the security customization tool from the Office Resource Kit.

Potential NewInspector issues in SP3

Developers of add-ins that use the NewInspector event to detect when an Outlook user opens a new item may want to test their programs with SP3 as soon as possible. As the Microsoft Knowledgebase explains, SP3 fixes several issues related to the NewInspector event. In particular, the article OL2000: The NewInspector Event Does Not Run When You Click the Next or Previous Buttons at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=317975 indicates that SP3 should fire a NewInspector even when the user clicks the Next or Previous button on an open message.

The potential problem is that developers may already have coded a workaround for this situation using other events. In that case, they may need to ensure that their code doesn't react twice -- once with workaround and once with SP3's NewInspector event.

Here are the other articles on NewInspector changes in SP3:

OL2000 The NewInspector Event May Not Fire For a Single Occurrence of a Recurring Appointment
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=272320

OL2000 The NewInspector Event Does Not Start Consistently After You Install the Outlook E-mail Security Update
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=317944

New registry options in SP3

Administrators, in particular, may be interested in these registry settings introduced in SP3:

Level1Remove, Level1Add
OL2000: Cannot Access Attachments
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=318515
Customizes attachment blocking.

ForceFormReload
OL2000 Error Message The Form You Have Selected...Cannot Be Displayed, Please Contact Your Administrator
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=285129
Forces Outlook to reload the original version of a published form if it can't load the cached version

ForcePolling
OL2000 You Cannot Receive New E-mail Notifications
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=311506
Configures Outlook 2000 to poll the Exchange Server instead of using UDP packets to receive new e-mail notifications.

IMAP Use Full Headers
OL2000: (IMO) IMAP Header View Does Not Contain "To" and "Sent" Fields
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=316113
Adds the Sent and To fields to message headers downloaded from an IMAP account

DontEncodeCustomNote
OL2000 How to Send a Custom Form Without TNEF
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=313523
Provides greater control over when Outlook sends TNEF formatting from a custom form

New Microsoft Knowledgebase syntax

If you're a hardcore user of the Microsoft Knowledgebase (MSKB), you probably noticed that the links above use a new format. All articles have dropped the letter prefix, as Microsoft moves toward better coordination among the KBs in different languages. Once the changes are complete, links that are not language-specific should take you directly to the KB article in your own preferred language.

The transition has actually gone quite smoothly. At first, there was a problem with redirects from article links using an older format, but that was reported to the right people at Microsoft over the weekend (thanks Chris!) and fixed on Monday.

The other benefit of the new format is shorter, simpler URLs. I wish Microsoft could do that with other areas of the Microsoft.com site, especially MSDN and TechNet, whose URLs are often too long for a single line in a plain text message.

Welcome OutlookCode.com members

Our new Outlook developer community site at http://www.outlookcode.com is off to a great start, with 227 registered users in just its first two weeks, many of them receiving EMO for the first time today. If you prefer not to register, that's fine, too. No registration is required to enjoy the site's forums and code samples.

Among the code samples posted so far is a snippet from Christian Gram that shows how to deal with time zone differences when creating appointments in another user's Calendar folder with CDO. You'll find it at http://www.outlookcode.com/codedetail.aspx?id=29.

More Information

Updated Jun 15 2011

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