Exchange Messaging Outlook
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Greetings! Welcome to Vol. 8, No. 2, 14 May 2003, of Exchange Messaging Outlook, a biweekly newsletter about Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook. Today's highlights:
Regular features:
Outlook view tricks: No group headings Much of the time, you work with the data in Outlook's various folders through the different folder views, without ever opening individual items. (Outlook 2003's enhanced "reading pane" is, in fact, designed to make opening a message an increasingly rare occurrence.) I thought it might be useful, therefore, to pass along a few tricks for some common view issues. In a grouped view, such as By Category, you may find it annoying that Outlook puts the name of the grouping field (e.g. Categories) in each shaded group heading. It is possible, though, to remove the name of this field from the group headings. First, right-click the column headings, and choose Field Chooser. Then drag the field that you're grouping by from the Field Chooser to the column headings. Right-click the column headings and choose Format Columns. Select the grouping field, and delete the text in the Label box, leaving it blank. Click OK to return to Outlook, then drag the grouping field off the column headings. Changing the label affects both the appearance of the column and the group headings for the same field. Outlook view tricks: No message preview You can prevent a user from seeing a message in the preview pane by sending the message with a custom form that has at least one line of code. This technique works because, as a security measure, Outlook won't allow the preview pane to show custom forms that have code. The user will, however, be able to see the first part of the text if AutoPreview is turned on. To create the form, choose Tools | Forms | Design a Form and select the Message form. Choose Form | View Code, and in the code window, type in this line:
or any other text, preceded by an apostrophe to turn the statement into a comment. On the (Properties) page of the form itself, check the box for "Send form definition with item." (This will embed the custom form in the message, so you can use this technique with recipients who don't share an Organizational Forms library with you.) Finally, choose Form | Run This Form, complete the message, and send it. If you need to use this technique often, you can use the File | Save As command to save the form as an .oft file to your desktop. Then, just double-click it when you need to send a message that can't be seen in the preview pane. To suppress text in the AutoPreview display as well as in the preview pane, start your message with a long line of spaces. Outlook View Tricks: Bring back the TaskPad! Have you ever lost the TaskPad and thumbnail calendars when viewing the Calendar folder? It's easy to get them back. Just maximize the Calendar window, then drag the right edge in toward the center. That will reveal the thumbnails and TaskPad again. You can adjust the relative size of those two panes by dragging the bar between them up or down. IE patch breaks Outlook Today The latest Internet Explorer patch (http://support.microsoft.com/?id=813489), which we recommended in the last issue of EMO, disables the Customize Outlook Today option in Outlook 2000. To restore this option, follow the instructions in the Microsoft Knowledgebase article "OL2000 You Cannot Customize Outlook Today After You Install Critical Update 813489 for Internet Explorer" at http://support.microsoft.com/?id=820575. Improved CurrentUser One of the annoyances for Outlook developers is that, in Outlook 2002, the Namespace.CurrentUser property doesn't work as expected if the user has only Internet accounts. Microsoft has released a hotfix that resolves this problem. Details are available in the Microsoft Knowledgebase article "OL2002: QueryIdentity Property May Return MAPI_W_NO_SERVICE" at http://support.microsoft.com/?id=814134. The fix apparently is at the Extended MAPI level, but should resolve the issue for the Outlook object as well. Outlook 2003 Beta 2 already has this fix, by the way. In an Internet-only profile, CurrentUser correctly returns the name and address from the default account, even if it's an Internet account. If the user changes the default account, the information returned by CurrentUser, however, reflects the old default account, until you restart Outlook. Visual Studio Tools for Office beta If you are a developer and already have the Office 2003 beta, you might also want to download the Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) beta. The idea behind this tool for developing with the .NET Framework is that you can create Word and Excel document templates that use managed code, most often stored in a central location on your intranet. The preview is free from http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/. You can include Outlook automation code in the Word or Excel programs you develop with VSTO, but you can't directly create Outlook applications with VSTO. One thing I learned in the process of setting up VSTO is that Office 2003 installs the primary interop assemblies for Office applications when you choose a Complete installation, but only if the .NET Framework is already installed on the machine. If you're not ready to install VSTO, but just want to learn more, Microsoft will be holding an online chat next Thursday, May 22. The full list of upcoming Office 2003 chats is available at http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/chats.asp, along with links to download vCalendar files to add the dates to your Outlook calendar. Stealth email Office 2003 Beta 2 refresh I got a little excited a few years ago, when I received my first email from an aircraft carrier at sea and learned that many American ships have their own Exchange servers. Now the Christian Science Monitor is reporting (http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0512/p25s01-usmi.html) that B-2 stealth bombers involved in the war over Iraq received at least some of their target information via Microsoft Outlook. Encrypted email messages sent by satellite apparently were one of the fastest ways to get information from the ground to the bombers, while maintaining the jets' near-invisibility. I just have to wonder what kind of new mail alert sound they used. |
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New Utilities |
FIND http://find.idealab.com/ Indexes Outlook mail and files on your computer for fast searches. Sends back a daily search log that contains no personal information; you can opt out of detailed logging. MAIL WIPER OUTLOOK PLUS PST MANAGER RAINMAKER GOLD SESSIONGUARD 5.5 |
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Updated utilities |
POLICY PATROL ENTERPRISE http://www.policypatrol.com/ Version 2.1 of this email policy enforcement tool integrates the Kaspersky anti-virus engine. |
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More Information |
ISSN 1523-7990 |
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Updated Jul 30 2006
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