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Greetings! Welcome to Vol. 8, No. 1, 30 Apr 2003, of Exchange Messaging
Outlook, a biweekly newsletter about Microsoft Exchange and
Microsoft Outlook.
Happy Birthday to EMO! It was seven years ago today that the
first issue of this newsletter went out to a few dozen subscribers.
You can read the very first issue at
http://www.slipstick.com/emo/1996/up043096.htm. Other back
issues are available at
http://www.slipstick.com/emo/index.htm.
At the end of its first year, 500 people were receiving EMO.
Today, the subscriber count is exactly 8,500! Many thanks to the
readers, contributors, and sponsors who have all helped make EMO an
effective voice for the Outlook and Exchange community.
Today's highlights:
- Office 2003 Beta 2 refresh
- SpamNet goes subscription; spam tools list grows
- Save My Settings -- but not online
- Unexpected Office 2000 registration prompts
- New Internet Explorer patch
Regular features:
- New utilities
- Updated utilities
- Other new resources
Office 2003 Beta 2 refresh
Microsoft is planning to continue the current Beta 2 phase of
Office 2003 testing with a refreshed build of the software later
this spring. Since Office includes two completely new applications
-- OneNote and InfoPath -- plus the new Business Contact Manager
add-in for Outlook, which has a lot of problems in the Beta 2
version, this is very welcome news. Microsoft hasn't said how this
refresh will affect the Office 2003 release schedule, but the
original plan to release Office 2003 in "mid-year" now seems
unlikely unless the feedback period after the Beta 2 Refresh is very
short.
SpamNet goes subscription; spam tools list grows
The first anti-spam tool to support Outlook 2003, SpamNet (http://www.cloudmark.com)
has moved from beta to full release and, in the process, transformed
itself into a paid subscription service costing $60 per year or $48
for current beta users who want to get the full version. Users who
have downloaded the beta version, however, will be able to continue
using the service with that version at no charge.
When asked about the subscription rate, Cloudmark CEO Karl Jacob
said the company looked at the cost in lost productivity that users
incur when deleting spam takes away from their working hours. "If
you only get five spams a day and take five seconds to identify and
delete each one, that translates to over $80 a year in wasted time
if your annual salary is $40,000." Some SpamNet customers, Jacob
added, get well over 50 spam messages a day.
In a direct counter-move, Sunbelt Software is offering its
iHateSpam tool effectively for free (not counting shipping and
handling) with a mail-in rebate available to Amazon.com purchasers.
If you use this link --
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006RZ9P/cdolivthepremier
-- to order, you'll also be supporting our work at the Slipstick
Systems Outlook & Exchange Center.
I find it interesting that new anti-spam tools are emerging and
the marketing of existing tools is getting more and more aggressive
just as Microsoft is working on Outlook 2003 with its beefed up
anti-spam capability. Maybe they are anticipating that after Outlook
2003 comes out, there won't be room for so many tools, so they'd
better establish market position now. New tools listed at our
http://www.slipstick.com/rules/junkmail.htm#tools page include
Ella, Junk-Out, Spam Bully, and SPAMfighter.
Save My Settings -- but not online
Microsoft has quietly dropped its Internet service where users
could store information generated by the Office Save My Settings
wizard. The Microsoft Knowledgebase article "OFFXP: Error Message:
We Are Having Problems Accessing the Save My Settings Wizard Server
on the Internet" at
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=816040 describes an error
message you might receive when trying to use the service.
According to Microsoft sources, very few people were actually
using the service, and it would have taken a considerable effort to
upgrade it for Office 2003, so it has been discontinued. You can
still save your settings as a file and either store it locally or
with any online file storage service, if you want an off-site copy.
The Save My Settings wizard is included with Office XP and 2003.
Office 2000 users can download it from
http://office.microsoft.com/Downloads/2000/o2ksmsdd.aspx.
Unexpected Office 2000 registration prompts
On April 15, some installations of Office 2000 began surprising
users with a prompt to register Office whenever they use Outlook or
any other Office program. A Microsoft spokesperson explained that
the problem was related to an error in the code that normally
collects registrations from standalone users but not from corporate
installations.
Microsoft now offers a fix that replaces the Mso9.dll file. The
Microsoft Knowledgebase article "OFF2000 Office 2000 Prompts You to
Register After April 15, 2003" at
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=818798 describes the problem
and the patch.
New Internet Explorer patch
Microsoft has issued a new comprehensive patch for Internet
Explorer. Regular EMO readers know that we always advocate applying
IE patches, since Outlook shares some of its Internet components,
particularly for handling HTML-format messages, with IE. This is
especially important if you're using a version of Outlook 98 or 2000
that predates the Outlook Email Security Update. Apparently, this
patch also addresses a relatively common cause of Outlook crashes
related to HTML-format messages. You can read about the security
vulnerabilities addressed by this patch at
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=813489; the article also
includes installation instructions.
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