Let's start with some background on what search folders are and how they work. A search folder is a virtual folder that holds pointers to messages stored in other folders. They are not "real" folders and any action you take on a message in a search folder will apply that action to the actual message in its folder. For example, if you Select All then mark all message flags complete in the For Follow Up folder, the flags are marked complete on those messages in the Inbox. If you delete a message in a search folder, it's deleted from Outlook (or more accurately, moved to the Deleted items folder), the same as if you have deleted it from your Inbox.

When a search folder is created or accessed for the first time, it searches your mailbox and populates the folder with messages that match the criteria. It will watch as new mail arrives and add it to the search folder if it matches the criteria. It will continue to do this as long as you make regular use of the search folder. When you stop accessing the folder, Outlook stops looking for messages which match the criteria. How often is "regular" use? As long as you access the folder at least once every eight days, the search folder will show all messages as they arrive. If you stop using the folder, Outlook will stop searching for messages to add to that folder until you begin using it again.

Exchange administrators can configure the retention time for search folders in mailboxes, standalone Outlook users are stuck with the default of eight days. Another limitation which can be changed by administrators is the number of search folders available. By default, you are limited to 20 search folders, but an administrator can raise (or lower) the limit for Exchange mailboxes by editing attributes in the Active Directory.

Administrators can learn how to make these changes by reading Best Practices for Search Folders

In the last issue, I suggested POP3 connectors as a solution for small businesses that use a hosted Internet email service and use Exchange only for internal email and calendaring.

Many Exchange administrators are very down on using a POP3 connector to pull email into Exchange from an ISP server. The most common reason is how it handles BCC'd messages and the inefficiency in handling email multiple times. Exchange was designed to process email and does a pretty good job with it, so why add another layer or two to the process?

While it's definitely much better to put Exchange "on the Internet" and let it collect the mail for your domain, it's not always possible or practical, especially for smaller businesses. Most of the POP3 connectors commercially available offer a number of features the POP3 connector that is included with Small Business Server does not offer, such as the ability to deliver messages it collects from any POP3 server to any email address, including mail enabled public folders. They can also be configured to handle mail differently for each account that is collected, but more importantly, they can be installed on any computer and act as a relay between the Internet POP3 mailbox and the SBS Exchange server.

This recent post to the microsoft.public.outlook newsgroups shows the perils of using the SBS POP3 connector:

"A member of staff at one of my clients screwed-up by posting email addressees into the To; field instead of the Bcc: field. Unfortunately there were 1500 addressees and it appears that the senders ISP does not apply a limit to the number of recipients on emails."

You read that and probably thought "Yeah, that was dumb of the ISP not to set a lower limit on recipients, and the user should have used mail merge, but the worst problem is that the recipients will know who is using the client and the 1500 addresses might be exposed to a spammer. It's definitely a blunder, but not one that many others haven't made and an apology will be the end of it."

Unfortunately, it gets worse:

"Apart from the error in showing email addresses, the message has triggered a huge amount of redirected mail apparently from recipients who have Exchange Server 2003, which are reading the addressees as outside their domain and resending with the result that the message is being received literally hundreds of times. You can imagine the flak that is flying! " (Editor: the author is referring to Exchange in Small Business Server 2003, not standalone Exchange servers.)

That's right, if you use the POP3 connector in SBS 2003, it sometimes gets confused when it receives messages sent to multiple addresses and may send copies of the message to every address included in the original distribution. If the message is sent to a large number of SBS2003 users a mailstorm is likely, with each server sending the messages out again, and again, until the administrator filters or blocks mail from the offending domains.

The obvious solution is to stop using the POP3 connector that is included with SBS2003 but had the administrator installed a patch Microsoft released nine months ago, the problem would have ended with the user sending a message with 1500 addresses in the To field.

Is there a chance this would happen with the commercial POP3 connectors? Probably not, because they collect the mail from the ISP's POP3 mailbox and are configured to send it to the appropriate Exchange mailbox. It also wouldn't have happened in SBS2003 had the administrators installed the updates as they were released.

POP3 Connector Tools

Many unexpected outbound e-mail messages appear in the SMTP queue in Small Business Server 2003 (835734)

A reader asks: What is the best way to add an appointment on someone else's calendar at the same time I add it to my calendar? We don't use Exchange server.

Using Exchange server only makes it easier to share appointments or add them directly to other user's calendars. Both of the following methods work with both Exchange and non-Exchange recipients.

You can forward items to other Outlook users by selecting the appointment, select the Actions menu and choose one of the Forward options. The recipient will need to open the attached Calendar item and click Save to add it to their calendar. If they don't use Outlook, choose the option to forward it as an iCalendar.

And easier method is to send the appointment to other Outlook users at the time you create the appointment by creating it as a meeting request. Before sending it, go to the Actions menu and deselect the options to require a response and to allow the other person to suggest a new time. They'll receive a meeting request they can Accept to add to their calendar but won't send a reply back to you. If they have Outlook configured to automatically process appointments, it will be added to their calendar automatically a few minutes after it arrives.

If the recipient receives a normal email message instead of a calendar item, you'll need to click on their address before sending and choose the option to send as Rich Text.

To learn about other ways of sharing your calendar, see http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/share.htm

"When I look at my daily calendar, over to the right of it a small calendar showing the complete month that my daily is part of. How can I view 6 calendars on the same screen? I used to be able to do this prior to 2003 Outlook being loaded."

The small navigation calendars were on the Taskpad in older versions of Outlook, which Outlook 2003 hides by default. When you show the Taskpad, Outlook removes the navigation calendars from the Navigation pane. In either case, how many calendars that are displayed depends on how wide or high the pane is.

You can show multiple calendars in the Navigation pane on the right by dragging the inside edge of the Navigation pane inward one thumbnail calendar or more widths. If you don't want a wider Navigation pane or want the calendars on the right side, show the Taskpad using the View, Taskpad menu and drag the inside edge inward or the bar separating your calendar from the tasks down one or more calendar heights to display more calendars.

How many calendars you'll be able to show depends on your screen real estate. Using 1400 x 1050 resolution, with all toolbars closed, the Navigation pane at it widest with limited items listed in the pane, 24 calendars fit in the Navigation pane. You can display even more in the Taskpad side by adjusting the width and height of the Taskpad pane.