The following articles were included in our Exchange Messaging Outlook (EMO) newsletter published on February 2, 2023.
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Today's Highlights »
- Never-ending Reminders in Shared Calendars
- Assign Stationery to Email Accounts?
- Microsoft 365 Basic
- MLB Calendars in Outlook.com
Never-ending Reminders in Shared Calendars
Several users complained about not being able to dismiss reminders in shared calendars in Outlook.com. Microsoft is aware of the bug and working on fixing it.
If you are affected try these steps as a workaround:
1. If you are using a shared calendar, ask the person to stop sharing it and remove it from your account in Outlook on the web. The person needs to wait at least 15 minutes before sharing it with you again.
2. Go to File > Account Settings > Account Settings. Double click on the account and click More Settings. On the advanced tab, remove the checkmark from Turn on shared calendar improvements then restart Outlook.
If the shared calendar is from the user's mailbox, it should be visible in Outlook with shared calendar improvements turned off but you may not be able to add or edit appointments on it in Outlook desktop. You can try turning shared calendar improvements back on.
If the shared calendar is the Your Family calendar, you'll need to turn shared calendar improvements back on in Account Settings. So far, the users are reporting reminders can be dismissed after turning it back on.
Some users reported the problem to support then found they were getting endless password requests and an error message that they needed to use a business account. This is a different bug, related to using support. Affected users need to set a registry key to the disable support options:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Office > 16.0 > Outlook > Options > General
DWORD: DisableSupportDiagnostics
Value: 1
Assign Stationery to Email Accounts?
A user had a question about Outlook stationery: "I can assign different signatures to different accounts. Can I also assign stationery to different accounts? "
No, Outlook doesn't have an option to set stationery specific to individual accounts. But you can select different stationery when composing a message. Instead of clicking New Email, expand the New Items button and choose E-mail Message Using > More Stationery…. and select the stationery you want to use.
If you use different stationery often, add the More Stationery command to the Quick Access Toolbar or ribbon. While you can't select specific stationery to put on the ribbon, you can use a macro (or PowerShell) to open a new message using specific stationery.
I have VBA macros and PowerShell. In this case, VBA is probably the best option since you can add a button for the macro to the ribbon. PowerShell is fun to work with and doesn't require changing macro security settings, but its not as convenient as a button on the ribbon.
Create a New Message using an HTML File or Stationery
Microsoft 365 Basic
As I mentioned in the last issue, Microsoft was releasing a new subscription program called Microsoft 365 Basic. It gives the user ad-free Outlook, a larger mailbox, 100Gb in OneDrive… and until the ability to add custom domains to Outlook.com goes away in November, you can use a personalized address in Outlook.
Microsoft 365 Basic is single user so you wont be able to share the custom domain with others, but if you don’t need the Office 365 software but want to host a custom domain in Outlook.com, at $19.99 US, its good deal.
To get Microsoft 365 Basic or learn more about it, see Cloud Storage Pricing and Plans (microsoft.com). you can purchase it direct from an Outlook.com account: click the 3 dots beside the ads at the top of the message list and choose go Ad-Free.
MLB Calendars in Outlook.com
Adding MLB calendars to Outlook.com using the Add Calendar > Sports > MLB, adds the calendar but only a few weeks of games sync. For individual teams, you'll get the schedule through early March or early April in you choose All Teams.
Microsoft is aware but I don't have information if it is "by design" (bad design!) or a bug that will be fixed. There have been a number of sync issues with the available calendars so I'm not holding my breath that this will be fixed before opening day.
New & Updated Microsoft 365 & Exchange Server Support Articles
Some Exchange services do not start automatically after installing January 2023 Security Update
Exchange Toolbox and Queue Viewer fails after Certificate Signing of PowerShell Serialization Payload is enabled
New & Updated Outlook Support Articles
Calendar events missing in Scheduling Assistant
Can't create a Teams Meeting in Outlook because the Teams Meeting add-in has become disabled
Error when opening Actionable Messages
Known issues with Outlook Desktop Shared Calendar Improvements
Outlook error “The operation failed” if the message has a retention policy
Outlook prompts “Retrieving templates from server” after selecting the From field drop down
Unable to dismiss shared calendar reminders for Outlook.com accounts in Outlook Desktop
Weather is no longer displayed on the Calendar in Outlook
Other Resources
Reset the New Outlook Profile
When you switch on the new Outlook, it pulls accounts in from your Outlook desktop profile. I'll show you how to clear the profile and create a new profile
Delete Old Calendar Events using VBA
I have a Days of the Year HOL file that creates all day events that count the days of the year, up and down "Day 5: 360 to go" but as the days are past, I don't need to know what day it was and prefer a cleaner calendar. While it's easy enough to delete