RSSExchange Messaging Outlook Volume 14, Number 32
Today's Highlights:
Office 2010 Public Beta
Do you want to try the Office 2010 beta? It's
now available to the general public. You’ll need
a live id (passport) and answer a short survey to
get the installation key and download.
The ribbon in Outlook's main window takes some
getting used to. Finding commands is much harder
at first, until you get used to the fact that
many commands from the Tools menu, including
everything that was on the Tools, Options dialog,
is on the File tab. The new features are sweet,
including the ability to open multiple Exchange
accounts (on the same or different servers).
I highly recommend installing it on a second
computer or a virtual machine, not a “production”
system. While it is very stable, it’s still a
beta. If you ignore this advice, install the
32bit version, especially if you use add-ins or
sync with devices. Existing add-ins will not work
with the 64bit version until they are compiled as
64-bits but there is a good chance they will work
with the 32-bit build.
For best results, uninstall your current version
of Outlook (and the Outlook connector, if used)
and make a backup copy of any PST in your
profile. The old profile should work ok, but you
should consider making a new one for the beta
build to use.
Outlook 2010's Social Connector
Outlook 2010's newest feature is a "social
connector". The People Pane will eventually
support social networks such as Facebook and
Twitter. But for now, it will show all activity
for the person, all mail exchanged with the
person, attachments sent to or received from,
past and future meetings. There is a Status tab,
but at this time its limited to accessing
SharePoint 2010 data. As we get closer to RTM,
connectors for the popular social services will
be made available.
How it works: when you select a message, the
People pane displays the sender's contact photo
(if one exists) all messages sent to or received
from the contact. If the message was sent to
multiple people, there are buttons available for
each contact (with their contact photo, if
available) so you can view your activities with
any of the other recipients.
The most useful aspect of this feature (at this
time) is that its effectively a mini-search pane
for messages, meeting, and attachments sent by or
to the person(s) displayed in the People Pane.
This feature alone makes it extremely useful for
everyone, even those not into the social
networking scene.
If you have an older version of Outlook and don't
want to use the beta or wait for Outlook 2010
RTM, try xobni.
Outlook 2010 Message Options (Internet Headers)
The little changes often annoy users more than
major changes and the removal of message options
(used to view internet headers) from the right
click context menu annoys many users, even those
who don't view header often.
Message options was removed from the context menu
in an effort to reduce menu clutter. It's now
accessible in an open message, either on the File
tab or by expanding the Tags chunk in the Message
ribbon.
Users who don't want to open the message to view
headers can add the Message options button to
Outlook's QAT. Go to File, Options, Quick Access
Toolbar and look for the "Message options"
command under "Commands not in the ribbon" and
add it to the QAT. Now you can select the message
then click the button on the QAT to view the
header.
Outlook 2010 & Outlook Connector Beta
If you decide to try the Office 2010 beta and
use a Hotmail/Live account with the Outlook
Connector, you'll need to upgrade the connector.
This is not available for download with the beta
but Outlook will go online and fetch the updated
connector when the Hotmail/Live account is added
to the profile.
If you are installing the beta as an upgrade,
uninstall the connector and reboot before
installing the Office beta. Outlook should detect
the Hotmail/Live account when you open the
profile and offer to get the new connector. If it
doesn't, you'll need to make a new profile.
Outlook Quick Tip: Type a new task's default due date
When using the "type a new task" field in the
To-do bar's task list, the default due date uses
the date set for the Quick Click flag.
To change the setting, right-click in the flag
column (can be any item in the task list or
Inbox) and choose Set Quick Click. Change the
selection to the desired date, then click OK.
This changes the quick click for the flag column
and for the default for new To-Do List items.
New Exchange KB Articles
Error message when an
Exchange 2007 user clicks "Post" or "Send" to
submit a new post item or to submit a new
calendar item for a moderated public folder in
OWA: "The item that you attempted to access no
longer exists"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=973912
New Outlook KB Articles
Outlook connection issues
with Exchange 2010 mailboxes due to RPC
encryption requirement
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=2006508
Outlook displays the Security Alert dialog box
when Exchange is using a self-signed certificate
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=2006728
