Exchange Messaging Outlook Volume 14, Number 36

A New Year, a New Calendar Bug

Sometimes I feel like I'm on a mission to find all of Outlook's calendar bugs. Some are inconsequential and silly, others are more serious. The silly ones are good for a laugh at Outlook's expense - usually problems with how Outlook displays the data but cause few problems otherwise.

Today's silly bug involves Outlook’s inability to correctly number weeks.

Erik found Outlook 2007 has a problem deciding which week number should be used to end 2012 and start 2013. (This bug also affects Outlook 2010; other versions are not affected as they show the week date only in the navigation calendars.)

"How does Outlook calculate the week numbers? In my part of the world, the first day of the week is Monday. Now if I look at the Outlook calendar and browse towards January 2013 I see something strange: The week from 31 Dec. 2012 to 06 January 2013 has week number 53. The following week however has week number 2. So where is week number 1 of the year 2013?"

Outlook numbers the weeks correctly when the week is set to start on Sunday (set in Tools, Options, Calendar options) but gets confused when the week starts on Monday. The underlying data is correct and the week number shown on the navigation calendar is half correct when you view both Dec 2012 and Jan 2013, only the number drawn on the calendar is wrong.

A screenshot of this anomaly:
 

Could this error have anything to do with the Mayan calendar? Hardly. From its first incarnation, Outlook has always had the world ending on Aug 31, 4500 (the last date for appointments).

More on week numbering...

The first week of the new year often brings questions about which week should be used to start numbering. In Outlook there are 3 options - start on Jan 1, on the first full week, or the first 4 day week. Using the 4 day option is probably the most common and is true to ISO standards (although choosing other than Sunday or Monday for the first day of week might confuse Outlook.) Most governments and corporations will follow the ISO standard.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_week_date to learn more about week numbering.

Inviting Others to a Meeting

A user asked: Is it possible for me to invite other people to a meeting that was sent to me? I'm an invitee, not the organizer.)

Yes, you can but you should follow good meeting etiquette when inviting others. This means you ask the organizer for permission to invite the other people. Ideally, the organizer will invite them, but reality is that many organizers will allow you to invite them yourself. To so this, select the meeting and forward it to the others. Exchange 2007 and 2010 will send a message to the organizer that the meeting was forwarded.

When the newly invited accept (or decline) the meeting, the organizer will receive the notification and their name is added to the optional attendees.

Outlook Hotmail Connector Beta

The beta build of the Outlook Hotmail Connector is available for Outlook 2003, 2007, and 2010. At some point Outlook 2003 and 2007 will ask to download and install the new connector (its required with Outlook 2010). If you prefer not to wait, it can be downloaded from the links below.

The beta is recommended for all users as it addresses some authentication and synchronization issues.

Outlook Hotmail Connector 14.0 for Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010 32-bit
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=3d003da0-f684-4f4d-a9c8-8d15b84f60d1

Outlook Hotmail Connector 14.0 for Outlook 2010 64-bit
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=16BAB660-54D8-4129-91C3-D86FF0D996E9 

Poll: Which version of Exchange Server do you use?

It's time for a new poll - this time we'll find out which version of Exchange server (if any) our visitors use for their main account.

http://forums.slipstick.com/showthread.php?t=33803

As always, polls are anonymous and you won't need an account to respond to the poll but will need one if you'd like to "add your two cents".