HowTo-Outlook

A new version of OutlookTools has been released. OutlookTools 2.3 has been updated to comply with the changes in Outlook 2010. It is still compatible with previous versions of Outlook as well of course.

OutlookTools is a support and advanced settings tool for Microsoft Office Outlook created by HowTo-Outlook. It gives you easy access to Outlook settings and data folders and allows you to change settings that are normally only possible through the registry.

Main Program Features

• Easy access to Outlook settings and data folders.
• Easy access to troubleshooting tools.
• Start Outlook with a startup switch.
• Clear the Most Recently Used lists.
• Make the New Mail Alert stay up for longer than 30 seconds.
• Unblock attachments.

Development for OutlookTools 3.0 is well underway as well, introducing lots of new features.
OutlookTools is free to use, but you can support its development by making a donation.

Download: OutlookTools 2.3

If you are an MSDN or TechNet subscriber, you can now also download the RTM release of Business Contact Manager (BCM) 2010. The download is available in both in the 64-bit and 32-bit edition and in many languages.

In addition, the database tool for BCM 2010 has been released as well. With this tool you can run the database of BCM on a remote server, share data and backup and restore the database.

BCM 2010 is bundled with the Office Standard 2010 and Office Profession Plus 2010 Suites.

If you are a football/soccer fan, you are probably looking forward to the upcoming Word Cup in South Africa.

To make sure you don’t forget about any of the games (time zones can be an annoying thing) Outlook MVP Marcelo Thalenberg has created a web calendar with all the matches. This web calendar can be connected directly to Outlook 2007 and 2010 so that you will receive updates as well. Previous versions of Outlook can import the ics-file.

Any other calendaring application which supports the webcal/ics format can be used as well.

Download: English FIFA World Cup 2010 schedule
Download: Spanish FIFA World Cup 2010 schedule

On June 15, Microsoft Munich/Unterschließheim (Germany) will be hosting the “Office (VSTO) Community Day”.

The topics discussed are focusing on development for SharePoint and Office such as;

• New features in VSTO 4.0 for Office 2010
• OpenXML File Format SDK
• Extending the Outlook Social Connector
• Programming examples of using Outlook’s Explorer, Inspector, Ribbon and Form-Regions.

Admission is free and speakers include both Microsoft developers and MVPs. So if you live/are in the neighborhood, and are an Office developer, don’t forget to signup as space is limited.

The Business Contact Manager Team has announced on their Team Blog that Business Contact Manager 2010 has reached the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) status.

It is directly available via Volume Licensing and will soon be added to MSDN and TechNet as well.

I’ve updated the “Setting Outlook Group Policies” guide to include information for Office 2010.

Group Policies allow you to enforce settings on a specific or a group of users or computers. This is mainly to be used to change or limit the default behavior of Office applications in an Active Directory environment but can also be useful in some home environments.

The Setting Outlook Group Policies guide explains how you can set Group Policies for Outlook in these environments and which tools are needed for it.

Microsoft has released 2 tools under an open source license. These 2 tools will allow developers to edit an pst-file without the need for Outlook to be installed on a machine or even for the machine to be running Windows.

The tools and their projects are hosted on CodePlex;
Download: PST Data Structure View Tool
Download: PST File Format SDK
View: Microsoft Delivers on Interoperability Principles With Office Outlook

The tools follow the earlier released Outlook Personal Folders File Format (.pst) Structure Specification.