Don't Send Meeting Updates

I’m seeing a lot of questions like this: “After a meeting request was created and sent to all our attendees, I want to add notes to that meeting on my calendar but I don't want other attendees to get the note I am saving. In Outlook 2003, it was a breeze. It lets me save the note without forcing me to send update. How do I do it in Outlook 2007?”

Clicking the X to close the form should bring up a dialog which offers Save and send updates, Save and don't send updates, or Don't Save. If it only offers Save and Send updates or Don't Save but keep open, use the following steps to save the changes to the meeting request without sending the update:

1. Click Cancel on the Save and Update dialog, if open.
2. Click Save icon in Quick Access Toolbar (or Ctrl+S).
3. Choose the ‘Don't save but keep open’ option.
4. Click X to close.
5. Choose the close, no update option.

Open the meeting - it should have your notes saved (its never failed for me.) Yes, it is a roundabout way to do what should be a simple task, but it works. And yes, there is at least one bug in the process since it saves the changes anyway.

Another recent question involved changing a meeting time or date without sending updates to attendees. While I have to wonder why someone would change a meeting time or date and not want to notify the attendees, it is possible - just remove the checkmark from all names on the Scheduling assistant tab and make your changes.

Good-bye 32KB Rules limit

Outlook's limitation on Rules with Exchange accounts receives a lot of complaints. If there is not an Exchange account in the profile, a user can have virtually unlimited rules, but Exchange users are stuck with a paltry 32KB limitation. (There is a practical limit as the Rules dialog is not well suited for managing a large number of rules and most people give up long before Outlook complains.)

Prior versions stored client rules client-side and server rules on the server, but a change in the rules engine in Outlook 2002 moved all rules to the server if Exchange is in the profile, causing more users to hit the 32KB limit. This worked out to around 30 rules in Outlook 2002 but Outlook 2003 and 2007 switched to Unicode rules. Now each rule uses up more of that limited space, reducing the maximum number of rules to around 15, often fewer.

It is possible to reduce the size of the rules, allowing you to squeeze another rule or two into the 32KB. Along with deleting rules you no longer use, use short names for your rules. Renaming 'Rule to move mail from my wife and kids' to 'Family' saves space, as does shorter file names. If you are moving messages to a PST, move to the PST to a location with a short file path. Using "C:\Outlook\2008.pst" instead of "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\everything i want to hide from my delegate.pst" will reduce the size of every rule using that PST.

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886616 for additional ways to squeeze more rules in.

If you're lucky enough to use Exchange 2007, the rules limit is higher - 64KB by default and configurable up to 256KB. This change will allow in the neighborhood of 100 rules, or about 90 more than I would want to manage in the Rules dialog.

Exchange 2007 users who need more space for rules will need to ask their administrator to raise their rules quota. If you're an admin and don't know how to raise the rule quota, use the following cmdlet in the Exchange management shell to raise the limit to 256KB.
Set-Mailbox username -RulesQuota:256KB

See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123981(EXCHG.80).aspx for more information on  Set-Mailbox commands. See Automatic Message Processing Tools for rules utilities, including the Incoming Mail Organizer and Sent Items Organizer by Sperry Software.

Help! Email won't send

A common problem among travelers is the inability to send email when they are away from home. They can receive email just fine when using any public network but can't send. I had quite a few users tell me that they tried everything, including reinstalling Office, to fix the problem. That's a lot of work for nothing.

This is not a problem with Outlook. It's with the ISP and how they have the SMTP server configured. In an effort to prevent spammers from using their servers, many ISPs only allow users connecting from inside the network to send mail. When someone attempts to connect to the SMTP server from outside the network, the connection is denied. Some ISPs don't use authentication inside the network but require it when outside the network, so you can try setting up outgoing authentication. If this fails, contact support and ask if there is an alternate port you can use. If not, create a Gmail account and use its SMTP server when you travel.

To change your SMTP setting, go to Tools, Accounts. Select the Account and click Change, then More settings, Outgoing server.

Outlook Quick Tip: Tiny Text

A reader asks: "When I compose a message it very tiny and unreadable. I changed font to no avail, even size 20 font is very small."

Check your zoom setting. It's on the Format Text ribbon in Outlook 2007. It's never happened to me so I can only  guess the recent rash of "tiny text" complaints is caused by errant moves of a mouse wheel.