Today's Highlights:

• Remove Invitation: from Gmail meeting subjects
• Create recurring emails in Outlook
• Font changes to Script after sending
• Disable Alt+S to Send

Remove Invitation: from Gmail meeting subjects

Several people asked me how to remove the word "Invitation:" from the subject of Gmail invitations, as it takes up a lot of space on Outlook's calendar, making it difficult to see the appointment subject.

How can I remove the word 'Invitation' from every appointment that originated as an invite from a Google calendar?

You will need to use a macro to remove the word Invitation from the subject line, unless you want to manually edit each appointment subject on your calendar.

I have two ready-to-use macros at Remove prefix from Gmail meeting invitations. The first removes the Invitation: from new meetings and Updated Invitation: from meeting updates as they arrive. The second macro removes the words from meetings already in your calendar.

Create recurring emails in Outlook

A user wanted to know how to set up a recurring email:

I need to set up a recurring email each first of the month. This email will also contain a standardized message for all recipients.

You have a couple of options. You can prepare the messages and set a Delay Send time to the messages. The only problem with this is Outlook will ask if you really want to close it when messages are waiting to be sent.

Better is using a macro that is triggered by a reminder. Create the message ahead of time, either as a template or in the body of the appointment or tasks. When the reminder fires, the message is created and sent. See Send an email when an Appointment reminder fires  for the VBA macro code.

Another option is using a PowerShell script, triggered by Task Scheduler. This method may work for people can't use macros. You can either create a message completely in PowerShell or use a prepared template.

This is a sample of the code needed to send a template and add the date to the subject field.

$l = New-Object -comObject Outlook.Application
$Mail = $ol.CreateItemFromTemplate("C: | path | to | template.oft") $ndatetime = Get-Date -Format g
$Mail.Subject = $Mail.Subject + ' ' + $ndatetime $Mail.send()

I have more information here, Scheduling a Recurring Message, along with a second PowerShell sample

Font changes to Script after sending

Twice this week, users asked what was wrong with Outlook. The message they sent looked fine in Outlook but the recipient received the message with a difficult to read script font.

When a recipient receives my email the font is in a script, which is very difficult to read - when I type the email, it isn't in that font. This only happens when the email is read on an iPad or iPhone - it's fine if read on a desktop computer.

My sent messages are received in a script font though I compose them in Comic Sans.

In both cases the cause is using a font that is not installed on the recipient’s computers, so the OS substitutes with another font. Comic Sans is not a default font installed on Apple products and the substitute is a script.

As long as you use a boring font, like Arial or Times New Romain, that is supported on pretty much every device available, the message should look the same to the recipient as it did when you typed it up. If the font is not available on the device, it falls back to the font family specified in the message header. For Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman and other basic fonts, it should either be Serif or Sans-serif.

Disable Alt+S to Send

A user had a problem accidentally sending messages using Alt+S key combination.

When writing with Polish language/keyboard, Polish special signs/letters are entered with Alt key. When I forget to change the language from English to Polish, I accidentally send email.

You can disable Alt+S by editing the registry, using one of two registry edits. The first method adds the value to the DisabledShortcutKeysCheckBoxes key, with the value data set to 83,16.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft Office\16.0\Outlook |  DisabledShortcutKeysCheckBoxes
String Value: Alt+S
Value Data: 83,16

Administrators can use group policy, which sets the following registry key. Again, you'll use 83.16 as the key combo.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\outlook\disabledshortcutkeyslist
String Value: KeyMod1
Value Data: 83,16

New & Updated Exchange KB Articles

'CrimsonProbe has been poisoned repeatedly' error when migrating mailboxes to Exchange Server 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456240

ActiveSync clients cannot connect or synchronizing is delayed in an Exchange Server environment
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456227

Add an option to control UseAscReqNoToken through app configuration for Exchange Server 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456228

AdvancedDataGovernanceLogs is created on the D drive after deploying Exchange Server 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456231

Applying a cumulative update sets Require SSL only on MAPI virtual directory
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456226

Component/protocol level bypass option for InternetWebProxy to avoid unnecessary proxy traffic within internal networks
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456230

Event ID 4999 and NullReferenceException when New-MailboxRestoreRequest and New-MailboxExportRequest fail in Exchange Server 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456245

Exchange Server 2016 user can't access a shared calendar from Exchange Server 2013
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456259

Hashed lines shown in scheduling assistant when Availability Service is configured in cross-forest in Exchange Server 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456243

Images are lost from OWA signature in external email in Exchange Server 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456225

Irrelevant management role entries without parameters shown in Exchange Server 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456229

Mail gets stuck when subject has unknown charset in Exchange Server 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456234

Message tracking logs can't be fully indexed in Exchange Server 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456249

MRM does not work for mailboxes that have an online archive mailbox in Exchange Server 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4468363

OWA enters authentication loop when users use device registration and can't gain access
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456232

Public folder forwards the new item that you create in Exchange Server 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456244

S/MIME fixes for Exchange Server 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4459847

StoreDriver.config validation fails then meeting reminder can't be set to 'None'
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456247

UAPStatisticsLog and RecordReview are created on the D drive after you deploy Exchange Server 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456233

Users can download and view attachments that exceed the MaxAttachmentSize policy setting
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4456250

New & Updated Office 365 KB Articles

How to switch from Semi-Annual Channel to Monthly Channel for the Office 365 suite
https://support.microsoft.com/help/3185078

Microsoft Teams now the primary client for meetings and calling in Office 365
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4465277

Preparing for TLS 1.2 in Office 365
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4057306

New & Updated Outlook KB Articles

'Outlook not responding' error or Outlook freezes when you open a file or send mail
https://support.microsoft.com/help/2652320

The macros in this project are disabled for macros assigned Digital Signature certificate in Outlook
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/troubleshoot/deployment/macros-in-this-project-disabled-outlook

Attachment saving scenarios do not work as expected in Outlook 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4090818

How to enable global and advanced logging for Microsoft Outlook
https://support.microsoft.com/help/2862843

How to troubleshoot crashes in Outlook 2010 and later versions
https://support.microsoft.com/help/2934538

How to troubleshoot issues that cause Outlook to crash or stop responding when used with Office 365
https://support.microsoft.com/help/2413813

How to troubleshoot performance issues in Outlook
https://support.microsoft.com/help/2695805

Outlook continually prompts for your password when you try to connect to Office 365
https://support.microsoft.com/help/2984912

Outlook performance is slow in the Office 365 environment
https://support.microsoft.com/help/2441551

Outlook performance issues when you have many shared folders or mailboxes open
https://support.microsoft.com/help/3136059

Other Resources

Colorless Icons, Simplified Ribbon and Folder List changes
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Create Rules using PowerShell
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Find Users with Send On Behalf Permission
Use PowerShell to create a list of mailboxes with Send as permissions assigned.

Move email items based on a list of email addresses
This code sample shows how to load the contents of a text file into an array then use the array to do something, in this example, to move messages to a new folder.

OneNote is missing from Office 365 / 2019
Office 365 and Office 2019 no longer include Onenote 2016 in the installation package. Learn how to install it.

October 2018 Office Update Release
Microsoft released these security and nonsecurity updates for Office in October 2018.

Cumulative Update 11 for Exchange Server 2016
CU11 for Exchange Server 2016 was released on October 16, 2018. This cumulative update includes fixes for nonsecurity issues and all previously released fixes for security and nonsecurity issues.