Exchange Messaging Outlook Volume 11, Number 18

I'm frequently asked about message recall, specifically, they want to know why it doesn't seem to work at all.

Several things need to happen for recall to work. You need a blue moon on a warm starry night, then throw a pound of salt over your left shoulder: and once you do all that, it still probably won't work. Yeah, I'm just kidding on those steps, but I'm not kidding when I say that recall really only works under certain very specific conditions.

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Do you want to empty your Deleted Items folder automatically? You can use an option built into Outlook to empty the deleted folder on exit (Tools, Options, Other tab, Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting), but it can slow down the exiting process. It's an all or nothing process - if it's enabled, it will empty the folder every time you close Outlook. You can't have it only delete items that are older or over a certain size. And if you accidently delete something you need to keep and close Outlook before retrieving it from the Deleted Items folder, its history. You can't recover it unless you use Exchange server and deleted items recovery is enabled.

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It's been a frustrating month. I planned to move to a new location and had phone service and DSL turned on well in advance of the move so I could be sure it was working correctly before moving my servers. It worked great on nice days, but at night or on rainy days, the DSL kept cutting out, connecting then almost immediately disconnecting. The few times it stayed connected, the speed was well below the daytime speeds as reported by the modem interface. Around 9 am it would start working fine again until early evening, except when it rained, when it didn't work during the daytime either. By my logic, when it didn't work on rainy days or on damp, foggy fall nights, it was because of water in or on the lines. It made a lot of sense to me, but not to tech support.

I called CenturyTel support and told them it seemed like it was water-related since it happened on rainy days and at night. They said they'd send a repairman out to check my lines. I wasn't around when he supposedly came out, but when DSL still didn't work right at night, I called tech support again. They said the lines checked out fine and it was something inside, maybe the security system, the satellite dish, a light or appliance only on at night. The first two are not installed and I insisted it was weather related, not electrical interference. They offered me two options: pay $140/hr for a repairman to check their lines or $400/mo for a T1 with guaranteed uptime and they'd test them for free. I called Time Warner instead.

When I called to have the DSL disconnected because daytime-only business class DSL wasn't meeting my needs and they wouldn't fix it, the customer service agent talked me into trying tech support one more time. Once again, I told tech support the symptoms and suggested the problems seemed to be weather related. The response this time? "The modem is bad. It's still under warranty; we'll send a new one." My reply: "It better be under warranty, you sent it to me 30 days ago. Is it common for modems to fail at night or on rainy days but work fine during the day?" After a very long pause he decided maybe another repair ticket was in order.

I made sure I was around when the repairman arrived to check the lines. He opened the green box out by the street and guess what he discovered: WATER! Water pooled around the base and the plastic shield that is supposed to prevent shorts was loose and wet. Why oh why didn't tech support listen to me the first time.

The repairman also told me the modems have a very low failure rate but that doesn't stop tech support from replacing them and hoping the problem goes away for the customer. I already knew that; I threw out a box full of modems Sprint sent me over the years. I kept them, just in case a modem actually failed (but none did). I suppose I can be happy they didn't tell me to reformat or "write zeros", the tech support cure all.

Now that the box is dried out, the DSL works fine but it's still getting disconnected as soon as Time Warner installs their service early next week. Here's to hoping Time Warner works as advertised all the time.