Clear the Most Recently Used lists (01 Sep, 2006)
For certain actions Outlook holds a list of recently used items so you have quicker access to them. In some case you want to clear this list.
View: Clear the Most Recently Used lists
Schedule a Recurring E-mail (01 Sep, 2006)
If you are sending the same e-mails on a recurring basis like daily, weekly, monthly etc… to send for instance a reminder or an update report as attachment you may want to automate that. Outlook doesn’t natively have this feature but with some code or add-in it can be done.
View: Schedule a Recurring E-mail
Outlook 2007 Sample: Ribbon Extensibility Add-In (27 Aug, 2006)
The Outlook 2007 RibbonX Add-In is a learning tool that will help you understand how to customize the Ribbon for Outlook Inspector windows. It provides coverage of the following important new areas:
- How legacy command bar customizations appear in an Outlook Inspector window
- How to implement the Office.IRibbonExtensibility interface in an Outlook add-in
- Providing Ribbon markup for Ribbon customization depending on the RibbonID string passed in the GetCustomUI callback
- Using the IRibbonControl.Context object to find an instance of an Inspector object
- Changing the state of Ribbon controls depending on the PropertyChange event for an Outlook item.
Download: Outlook 2007 Sample: Ribbon Extensibility Add-In
Outlook 2007 Add-Ins: RulesAddin, TravelAgencyAddin, and PrepareMeAddin (27 Aug, 2006)
The Outlook 2007 Sample Add-Ins are a learning tool that will help you understand some of the important new features in the Outlook 2007 object model. They provide coverage of the following important new areas:
- Using the Rules object model, which allows you to programmatically create or access most rules supported by the Outlook Rules Wizard (Rules sample)
- Implementing a form region for an Outlook contact item (Travel Agency sample)
- Adding a custom task pane to an Outlook AppointmentItem (Prepare Me sample)
Download: Outlook 2007 Add-Ins: RulesAddin, TravelAgencyAddin, and PrepareMeAddin
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Release Notes (27 Aug, 2006)
This download contains a standalone version of the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Release Notes.
Download: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Release Notes
Video: Demonstration of the Scheduling Assistant (25 Aug, 2006)
Paul Tischhauser demonstrates the “Scheduling Assistant” feature in Outlook 2007 that is enabled with Exchange 2007.
View: Video: Demonstration of the Scheduling Assistant
Top Exchange 2003 Recipient Problems and how they’re fixed in Exchange 2007 (25 Aug, 2006)
In Exchange 2007, recipient management is incorporated into the Exchange Management Console and Exchange Management Shell based on Windows PowerShell technology. Shell based management for these recipients allows us to overcome several current challenges of Exchange 2003.
There are a couple of key challenges in Exchange 2003 that we have specifically addressed with the Exchange 2007 recipient management model:
- Poor separation between Windows Active Directory administrators and Exchange administrators
- Split permissions model hard to implement, not available out of the box
- Automating user management and provisioning is difficult
- Recipient Update Service is a black box and not deterministic
Read the article to see how they have addressed these challenges.
View: Top Exchange 2003 Recipient Problems and how they’re fixed in Exchange 2007
Microsoft winds back Office ribbon (25 Aug, 2006)
Microsoft has modified its new interface for Office 2007 after complaints from beta testers that the ‘ribbon’ system took up too much space on screen. Office 2007 has ditched the traditional drop-down menu approach of most Windows applications in favour of the ribbon, which displays functions in new categories such as Home, Insert and Mailing in a strip across the top of the screen.
Microsoft says the new interface makes it easier for users to access the wide range of features in applications such as Word, Excel and Access.
However, in the next technical refresh of the Office 2007 beta, users can set the ribbon to automatically minimise whenever it is not being used, effectively making the ribbon headings look like traditional menus. (Windows has long offered a similar auto-hide option for the taskbar.)
View: Microsoft winds back Office ribbon
Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 (25 Aug, 2006)
This update should also get rid of a printing bug when printing HTML formatted e-mails from Outlook.
Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) Release Candidate 1 (RC1) has been designed to make everyday tasks easier, provide dynamic security protection and improve the development platform and manageability. End user improvements include a streamlined interface, tabbed browsing, printing advances, improved search functionality, instant feeds (RSS), dynamic security protection, and more.
View: Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1
Download: Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 for Windows XP SP2
Download: Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 for Windows Server 2003 SP1
Download: Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 (Windows x64 Editions)
Download: Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Uninstall Toolkit
Windows Desktop Search 3.0 Beta 2 (25 Aug, 2006)
Windows Desktop Search 3.0 (WDS) enables fast search on your computer using indexing technology. It helps you to find your documents, email, music, photos and other items. The search engine in Windows Desktop Search 3.0 is a Windows service that is also used by applications such as Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Office OneNote 2007 to index application content and deliver instant results when searching within an application. This release is an update to the Beta Engine Preview release of Windows Desktop Search 3.0. The most noticeable improvements include full Desktop Search UI, 64-bit support, and better performance. The installation process will automatically upgrade 2.5 and higher versions of Windows Desktop Search. Earlier versions of Windows Desktop Search should be uninstalled from Add/Remove Programs before this version is installed.
Download: Windows Desktop Search 3.0 Beta 2 for Windows XP
Download: Windows Desktop Search 3.0 Beta 2 for Windows XP x64 Edition
Download: Windows Desktop Search 3.0 Beta 2 for Windows Server 2003
Download: Windows Desktop Search 3.0 Beta 2 for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition
Duplicate E-mails (July 22)
It’s probably one of the most annoying things; receiving the same e-mail multiple times. Actually I’m not talking about a single e-mail but basically all your e-mails and not just twice bot LOTS of times. This article discusses the most common configurations which lead to e-mail duplication and how to prevent them from happening again.
View: Duplicate E-mails
Save Embedded Pictures in Their Original Format (updated) (June 13)
I’ve updated the original article with instructions on how to save the pictures to another folder than your Desktop.
View: Save Embedded Pictures in Their Original Format (updated)
Outlook 12 BETA 2 Known Issues List (June 13)
Interested in running Outlook 12 BETA 2? Make sure you are aware of the known issues before installing!
This certainly isn’t meant as a sneer to everyone having their way with the latest and greatest but you’ll have to remember that this is BETA software. You could come accross these bugs and possibly some more as well. Don’t use it in (critical) production environments (test environments only!) and keep in mind that many of your add-ins won’t work (contact the vendor of the add-ins to verify if they consider themself Outlook 12 compatible already) and could lead to issues if you don’t deactivate them (Tools-> Trust Center-> Add-Ins). As always; make sure you keep backups of your data. Not only of during the BETA but also from before installing just in case you’ll need to do a disaster recovery.
Looking forward to continue discussing this new version with you in the newsgroups!
View: Outlook 12 BETA 2 Known Issues List
Where did that feature go? (June 13)
Sadly no Outlook version of this tool but still very handy considering that so many people are running the BETA of Office 12. The tool shows the 2003 menus of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. When you use this menu it will tell you where you can find it in the Ribbon. “Sadly” this tool doesn’t work the other way around as I’m finding so many options with the Ribbon I never knew that they existed for versions already (kinda embarrasing). The Ribbon takes a little bit of getting used to but I find myself using much more options and I really am creating better documents because of it!
Word 2003 to 2007 Interactive Command Reference Guide
Excel 2003 to 2007 Interactive Command Reference Guide
PowerPoint 2003 to 2007 Interactive Command Reference Guide
Microsoft Office 2007 Beta 2 Available for Download (May 23)
Evaluate the next release of Microsoft Office products for testing and planning purposes with 2007 Microsoft Office system Beta 2. The beta release contains all the functionality of the regular release, but is not the final product.
Download: Microsoft Office 2007 Beta 2
Adding Sound and Scrolling Text (workaround) (April 24)
I’ve previously described the proper and built-in method to add a background sound or scrolling text into an Outlook message here. However since Windows XP SP2 this method is no longer supported as SP2 disables the ActiveX component (because of security issues) that controls this functionality. Since there is no fix announced to revive this feature for any version of Office and running Windows XP without SP2 also isn’t a real option I wrote this workaround which describes a safe method to insert sound and/or scrolling text to an e-mail.
