HowTo-Outlook

Quite some Outlook versions ago, the Outlook Today page was quite popular. It was even that popular that many people had it set as their default startup folder and used its dashboard like appearance to plan their days.

Well, times have changed and so has Outlook. Over the last couple of versions, Outlook has had various feature additions and changes which makes the Outlook Today page redundant. Most prominently these new features are the Favorites section, the To-Do Bar and Peeks.

As of Outlook 2013, Outlook Today officially got the “deprecated” status. This means as much as that Microsoft spends little to no resources anymore on the feature and it could be removed in an upcoming version (especially when the code breaks or gets in the way).

For you, this means that you should no longer base new work processes on it and when you still rely on it, move away from it and get on terms with the new features.

A description on how the new features made Outlook Today redundant can be found in:
Outlook Today, meet Favorites, Peeks and the To-Do Bar

So, do you still use Outlook Today? Let us know in the poll below!

A security update has been released for Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 (including Outlook 2013 RT) to address a vulnerability which could allow information disclosure.

An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could ascertain system information, such as the IP address and open TCP ports, from the target system and other systems that share the network with the target system.

The security update addresses the vulnerability by correcting the way that Microsoft Outlook parses specially crafted S/MIME email messages.

Note: The Outlook 2013 version of this update also contains the fixes mentioned in Hotfix KB2825677 which includes the To-Do Bar showing appointments for upcoming days.

View: More details and download information for KB2825644 (Outlook 2007)
View: More details and download information for KB2837597 (Outlook 2010)
View: More details and download information for KB2837618 (Outlook 2013)
View: Microsoft Security Bulletin MS13-094 – Important

Hotfix KB2825677 for Outlook 2013
This hotfix contains fixes for 9 specific issues. Most notable fixes are;

• Appointments for up to 7 upcoming days (when space permits it) are now displayed when you have the Calendar Peek enabled in the To-Do Bar instead of only Today’s appointments (View-> To-Do Bar-> Calendar).
  Appointments for upcoming days are now also displayed when you hover on the word “Calendar” at the bottom of your Outlook window.
• When you mark an email message as read or unread in the Inbox folder in Outlook 2013, the position of the Inbox folder is changed in the Folder pane.
• When your user account is in a different forest than the Exchange server, the email configuration test fails and setting an automatic reply results in the error message: “Your automatic reply settings cannot be displayed because the server is currently unavailable. Try again later.”
• When you try to update the meeting in Outlook 2013, you receive the following error message: “Could not complete the operation. One or more parameter values are not valid.”

View: More details and download information for KB2768340

Update:
The fixes included in this hotfix are also included in update KB2837618 which is being offered via Windows Update and automatically distributed with Office 365 (Click-to-Run version 15.0.4551.1005 or higher) installations.

Obtaining the hotfix
This is a Hotfix and not a regular update. You can request it via its KB article page. Note that Hotfixes do not apply to Office 365 Home Premium and other Office 365 installations. This update will soon be available to these installations as well though (within a month) and update automatically.

An update has been released for Outlook 2013 and can be downloaded and installed manually, but is also being offered via Microsoft Update.

Update KB2896300 for Outlook 2013
This is a non-security update which has been released without a change log. However, it also contains the fixes of the Out-of-Bind update KB2825632 to solve the Empty Folder Pane issue.

View: Download information for KB2896300

If you have Microsoft Update configured to also update other Microsoft applications, then this update will also also be offered via Microsoft Update or has already been updated automatically for you.