Tentative Appointments

We're starting to see a lot of complaints about Outlook automatically adding tentative appointments to the Calendar. While a small number of users have complained about it in the past, we're getting more questions asking how to disable it.

I really hate saying "No, you can't", but unfortunately, you can't disable this feature. Some people have had luck using rules to move meeting requests out of the Inbox, but this is hit-or-miss and doesn't always work.

Outlook uses Tentative acceptance so co-workers viewing Free/Busy can see if the invitees might have other commitments for that time period when they are scheduling appointments, reducing the need to suggest new appointment times. I believe we're seeing more complaints now because of the proliferation of Smartphones and PDAs - many users of handheld devices don't want to see tentative appointments on the phone.

Copy from the Reading Pane using Ctrl+Insert

We get a surprising number of complaints about Ctrl+Insert not working Outlook 2007's Reading pane – it’s not a shortcut I use because the keys are not convenient on my keyboard, but some users do use this shortcut, which works in all other areas of Outlook except the Reading pane. It's inconsistent and we don’t like inconsistency.

Now that the users have trained themselves to use Ctrl+C or right-click copy instead, we have some good news - install SP2 and Ctrl+Insert will again copy selected text in the reading pane.

While this is good news, Outlook 2007 is still missing a lot of popular shortcuts; unfortunately most of those will remain missing and are unlikely to be restored to Outlook 2007 or future versions.

Single key paste is available in Outlook - go to the Office icon, Editor options, Advanced tab - Use Insert key for paste is in the Cut, Copy, & Paste section. This is separate from Word's setting, so if you want it in both programs, you'll need to enable in it both Word and Outlook.

Exchange: Saving Sent items to a Shared folder

An administrator asks: Is there a way to put the "send on behalf of" send items automatically in the send items box of the mailbox owner and not the sender (or both) without buying extra software and without putting extra information in the subject line (so a rule works) every time someone sends an email?

Sorry, no. There is registry hack to store deleted items in the correct mailbox but a similar hack does not exist for sent items.

For more information on deleted items fix, see Items deleted from a shared mailbox go to the wrong folder in Outlook (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=202517)

Outlook Quick Tip: Count Flagged Messages

A user asked: I pulled several hundred contacts into a new list and am flagging certain responses. Is there a way to count the flags automatically? If it matters, I'm using Outlook 2007.

Search folders can do this for you. Make a search folder with the criteria you need rather than "pulling contacts into a new list" and the total count will be shown in the status bar. You can also show the total count to the right of the folder. Right-click on the folder and choose Properties then select "Show total number of items". If it’s not a search you'll need to use often, use Advanced Find instead.

Hotmail/Live E-mail Questions Answered

Q: How can I get an audio alert when new hotmail arrives?

A: Install Windows Live Messenger and set it to automatically sign in to your Hotmail account.

Q: How do I configure my sent items to stay in the right place - e.g. the Hotmail sent items in the Hotmail Sent folder, rather than in the unified sent folder in Outlook.

A: Use the Outlook Connector to access your Hotmail/MSN and Live mail. Also note that Outlook 2007 users can set a folder to use as the Sent folder for each account.

Q: When I set my filtering to No Automatic filtering, Outlook 2007 switches it back to Low. I have no reason to filter in Outlook and want it turned off. I have Hotmail set to low on the server.

A: This is normal behavior when you have a Hotmail account in your mail profile - the Outlook Connector syncs the Junk E-mail settings.