Exchange Messaging Outlook Volume 14, Number 5

Office 2007 SP2 Release

If you were waiting for the official Office 2007 SP2 release to get the Outlook fixes contained in the February Cumulative Update, it was released earlier this week. If you previously installed the February CU, this update installs SP2 for the other Office applications.

For those who skipped the Feb CU, this update contains a number of performance-based improvements for Outlook users, including better response when starting up and shutting down Outlook, switching between folders with large numbers of messages, calendar reliability and consistency, and general responsiveness when performing common tasks around managing e-mail, calendar, and other information. In short, Outlook should run faster and be more responsive, with fewer crashes.

Outlook SP2 fixes some problems with calendars: users will see fewer duplicate copies of meetings and fewer issues with organizers and attendees having different versions of the same meeting. Users should have fewer problems with disappearing and reappearing meetings. Outlook should also do a better job at automatically resolving conflicting edits without generating copies of the items in the Conflicts folder.

Keep in mind that the first time Outlook runs there will be a delay while Outlook reprocesses your data files. This processing happens the first time your profile is opened in Outlook and can take a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on the size of your message store. After this initial process, performance should be noticeably improved. If you installed the Feb CU, this process will not be repeated.

As with past updates, we're seeing a few reports of problems. At this time it doesn't look like the problems are widespread and SP2 is problem-free for most users. Some of the problems are fixed by restarting Outlook or rebooting the computer (after the initial reboot following the installation) and Office diagnostics may fix others.

If automatic updates are enabled, SP2 will be downloaded and installed over the next couple of days (if it wasn't installed already). Otherwise, you can download it from the link below.

Outlook 2007 improvements in the 2007 Office suite Service Pack 2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968774/ 

Outlook Team blog: Announcing the Release of Office 2007 Service Pack 2!
http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2009/04/28/announcing-the-release-of-office-2007-service-pack-2.aspx 

The 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 2 (SP2)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B444BF18-79EA-46C6-8A81-9DB49B4AB6E5&displaylang=en 

Phone Number Formatting

Outlook's automatic phone number formatting annoys many users. I hear a lot of complaints from people whose cellular phones can't dial numbers formatted with parenthesis. I used to suggest the user disable the Window's Telephony service before adding or syncing phone numbers to prevent formatting. This method works well as long as you don't click the number button (Business… etc) while the Telephony service is running.

A reader of my Outlook Tips blog has a better solution.

“Another option, for those who cannot remove the Telephony service (corporate machines) is to go to Control Panel, Phone & Modem Options and edit the Default Location. Choose the International Freephone Service.”

The International Freephone Service is used for 800 numbers and it does not format the number. You can type the number with or without spaces, or use periods or dashes as separators and the format is not changed. As with the Telephony service, you need to avoid clicking the number button (Business…, Home… etc) because opening the Check phone number dialog will add “+ 800” to the number, which you'll need to remove.

Thanks to evpanza for sharing.

Exchange Quick Tip: Calendar Names

A reader asked about the display names for shared calendars. "It's really confusing when the shared calendars are all called Calendar".

Yes, it is confusing when you add secondary mailboxes to your profile and view the Calendars because they are just called "Calendar". Since Calendars opened using Open a Shared Calendar command (or File, Open, Other User's Folder) use the calendar owners name in the format "Calendar - [Calendar Owner]", the solution is to open shared calendars using Open a Shared Calendar.

You don't need to remove the mailbox from your profile to do this; Outlook lets you open each calendar using both methods. Yes, having the same calendar listed twice is redundant, but it works. If you don't want to see the duplicated calendars, make a new group and move the entry from the secondary mailbox to the new group then collapse the group to hide it.

Keep in mind that when you select and deselect calendars, the names in the title bar and task bar will not change until you leave the Calendar module and return.

Outlook Quick Tip: Select Multiple Appointments

We get a lot of questions from people who want to move or copy several appointments to a new day in the Day/Week/Month view. They can easily select the appointments by holding Ctrl, but when they try to move them, only the last appointment moves. The secret to moving (or copying) a selection of appointments is to right click before dragging. This gives you a choice of move or copy.

The last selected appointment is the "master" - when you drop it on a new time, the other appointments in your select will adjust, so the time difference between them remains the same.