Quirky Things With Outlook XP & Outlook 2003

C

Charlie Hill

Recently we started installing the Outlook XP and Outlook 2003 programs.
There is a multitude of quirky things happening, and I am wondering if they
are normal for these versions of outlook, when used with Exchange 5.5.
Nothing about these quirks was found at support.microsoft.com.

Outlook XP - the profile does not stay stable. For example, the user has the
preview pane turned on in the inbox. The user move between folders, and when
they return to the inbox, the preview pane is turned off.

Outlook XP - in options - message handling - the setting for "after moving
or deleting an open item†will change in the middle of a session. It is set
to "return to the inbox", but it will change to "open the next item.

Outlook XP - contacts in a shared contact folder do not get saved to
exchange. Three users contribute to a shared contact folder. User A will add
three contacts to the folder. User A cannot see the contacts in their
contacts folder after they have completed entering them. User B finds them
using the advance search. User B does not find the new contacts when they
look in the shared contact folder. After this User B the contacts cannot be
located by the advance find.

Outlook 2003 - the public folders do not show up in the file list. They are
simply not listed.
 
T

Tim C

We never experienced any problems similar to those you listed while using
Outlook XP with Exchange 5.5.

As to your last item, in 2003, public folders do not appear in the Mail
pane. Click on the Folder icon in the Navagation pane, then scroll to the
bottom to find the Public Folders.

Why they did not make the Public Folders more accessible by putting them in
the Mail pane, I don't know.

Tim C
 
M

Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Since I dumped Outlook 2002, I can only answer your point about public
folders. Use the folders icon, not the all mail icon and they will display.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to
the (insert latest virus name here) virus, all mail sent to my personal
account will be deleted without reading.

After furious head scratching, Charlie Hill asked:

| Recently we started installing the Outlook XP and Outlook 2003
| programs. There is a multitude of quirky things happening, and I am
| wondering if they are normal for these versions of outlook, when used
| with Exchange 5.5. Nothing about these quirks was found at
| support.microsoft.com.
|
| Outlook XP - the profile does not stay stable. For example, the user
| has the preview pane turned on in the inbox. The user move between
| folders, and when they return to the inbox, the preview pane is
| turned off.
|
| Outlook XP - in options - message handling - the setting for "after
| moving
| or deleting an open item†will change in the middle of a session.
| It is set to "return to the inbox", but it will change to "open the
| next item.
|
| Outlook XP - contacts in a shared contact folder do not get saved to
| exchange. Three users contribute to a shared contact folder. User A
| will add three contacts to the folder. User A cannot see the
| contacts in their contacts folder after they have completed entering
| them. User B finds them using the advance search. User B does not
| find the new contacts when they look in the shared contact folder.
| After this User B the contacts cannot be located by the advance find.
|
| Outlook 2003 - the public folders do not show up in the file list.
| They are simply not listed.
 
M

Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Because public folders are not all mail folders. There are public contact
folders, calendar folders, etc.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to
the (insert latest virus name here) virus, all mail sent to my personal
account will be deleted without reading.

After furious head scratching, Tim C asked:

| We never experienced any problems similar to those you listed while
| using Outlook XP with Exchange 5.5.
|
| As to your last item, in 2003, public folders do not appear in the
| Mail pane. Click on the Folder icon in the Navagation pane, then
| scroll to the bottom to find the Public Folders.
|
| Why they did not make the Public Folders more accessible by putting
| them in the Mail pane, I don't know.
|
| Tim C
|
|
|
|| Recently we started installing the Outlook XP and Outlook 2003
|| programs. There is a multitude of quirky things happening, and I am
|| wondering if they
|| are normal for these versions of outlook, when used with Exchange
|| 5.5. Nothing about these quirks was found at support.microsoft.com.
||
|| Outlook XP - the profile does not stay stable. For example, the user
|| has the
|| preview pane turned on in the inbox. The user move between folders,
|| and when
|| they return to the inbox, the preview pane is turned off.
||
|| Outlook XP - in options - message handling - the setting for "after
|| moving or deleting an open item" will change in the middle of a
|| session. It is set
|| to "return to the inbox", but it will change to "open the next item.
||
|| Outlook XP - contacts in a shared contact folder do not get saved to
|| exchange. Three users contribute to a shared contact folder. User A
|| will add
|| three contacts to the folder. User A cannot see the contacts in
|| their contacts folder after they have completed entering them. User
|| B finds them
|| using the advance search. User B does not find the new contacts when
|| they look in the shared contact folder. After this User B the
|| contacts cannot be
|| located by the advance find.
||
|| Outlook 2003 - the public folders do not show up in the file list.
|| They are
|| simply not listed.
 
P

Pat Cai [MSFT]

Hi,

Thanks for posting here.

For the problem: The preview pane in Outlook XP will be disappeared
intermittently. I suggest the steps below to fix the problem:

Step 1: Start Outlook in Safe Mode
===================================================
In Safe Mode Outlook will be loaded without COM Add-ins and extensions.

1. Click the "Start" menu, and then click "Run".
2. In the Open window, type "Outlook.exe".
3. Following the last character of the name, type a space followed by
"/Safe" (without the quotation marks), and click "ok". Here is an example:

"Outlook.exe /Safe"

If in Outlook Safe Mode, the problem doesn't occur again. Please disable
all add-ins.

1. Start up Outlook in normal mode
2. Click Tools, then Options
3. In the Other Tab, click Advanced Options
4. Click Add-in Manager, CLEAR all the check boxes in Add-in Manager.
5. Click COM-addin, CLEAR all check boxes.
6. Reload Outlook in normal mode to see whether the same problem still
persists

If this problem persists, please go to next step.

Step 2: Locate and rename the Outlook cache files
====================================================
Perform a search on the computer to find the following files: extend.dat,
outcmd.dat, frmcache.dat, views.dat
Some of them may not exist, but it should not matter. We may also need to
show the extension of the file and enable the "show hidden files" option in
"Folder Options".
You may rename them to: "extend.dat"'"extend.old",
"outcmd.dat"'"outcmd.old", "frmcache.dat"'"frmcache.old",
"views.dat"'"views.old"

If you cannot rename the files, simply back them up to another folder and
then delete them. After renaming or deleting the cache files, let's repair
Outlook:

1. Open one of the Outlook XP programs, and select "Detect and Repair" on
the Help menu;
2. In the "Detect and Repair" dialog box, click Start;
3. Insert the Office XP installation CD if prompted. Restart your computer
after the repair process is complete.

If this problem persists, please go to next step.

Step 3: Create new Outlook profile
=====================================================
Note: A new profile is a new environment for us to use Outlook. To create a
new profile is only for a test to see if the problem is related to the
corrupt profile of Outlook. Creating new profile will not do any damage to
the old profile.

Please refer to the KB article:

OL2002: How to Create a New E-mail Profile for Outlook
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;287072

Hope the information helps.

Regards,

Pat Cai
Microsoft Online Partner Support

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
=====================================================
When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
=====================================================
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
T

Tim C

Not all of the folders in my mailbox or the other mailboxes I have access to
are mail folders, but all of the mail folders from those boxes are available
in my Mail pane. Why are the mail folders from Public Folders not there?
Or the Calendars in my Calendars pane, etc. This is very inconvenient. I
have one entire department that never uses the Mail, Calendar, etc. panes,
only the Folder pane, because they need the easy access to the Public
Folders which should be, but aren't, available in the other panes.

Tim C
MCSE, MCDST


Because public folders are not all mail folders. There are public contact
folders, calendar folders, etc.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to
the (insert latest virus name here) virus, all mail sent to my personal
account will be deleted without reading.

After furious head scratching, Tim C asked:

| We never experienced any problems similar to those you listed while
| using Outlook XP with Exchange 5.5.
|
| As to your last item, in 2003, public folders do not appear in the
| Mail pane. Click on the Folder icon in the Navagation pane, then
| scroll to the bottom to find the Public Folders.
|
| Why they did not make the Public Folders more accessible by putting
| them in the Mail pane, I don't know.
|
| Tim C
|
|
|
|| Recently we started installing the Outlook XP and Outlook 2003
|| programs. There is a multitude of quirky things happening, and I am
|| wondering if they
|| are normal for these versions of outlook, when used with Exchange
|| 5.5. Nothing about these quirks was found at support.microsoft.com.
||
|| Outlook XP - the profile does not stay stable. For example, the user
|| has the
|| preview pane turned on in the inbox. The user move between folders,
|| and when
|| they return to the inbox, the preview pane is turned off.
||
|| Outlook XP - in options - message handling - the setting for "after
|| moving or deleting an open item" will change in the middle of a
|| session. It is set
|| to "return to the inbox", but it will change to "open the next item.
||
|| Outlook XP - contacts in a shared contact folder do not get saved to
|| exchange. Three users contribute to a shared contact folder. User A
|| will add
|| three contacts to the folder. User A cannot see the contacts in
|| their contacts folder after they have completed entering them. User
|| B finds them
|| using the advance search. User B does not find the new contacts when
|| they look in the shared contact folder. After this User B the
|| contacts cannot be
|| located by the advance find.
||
|| Outlook 2003 - the public folders do not show up in the file list.
|| They are
|| simply not listed.
Click to expand...
 
P

Pat Cai [MSFT]

Hi Tim,

We can add public folder's shortcut in the shortcuts pane by drag and drop
the folder icon from folder list to shortcuts pane. The method applies to
all objects in the folder list. However, we still cannot turn off the
folder list pane as we have to locate subfolders in this pane.

Hope the information helps

Regards,

Pat Cai
Microsoft Online Partner Support

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
=====================================================
When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
=====================================================
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
T

Tim C

I tried dragging public folders of various types to various places,
including the Shortcuts pane and the Favorite Folders pane, but it won't let
me drop anything anywhere. But that would not help anyway.

The problem is that the Public Folders are not included in any way in the
new navigational/organizational features of Outlook 2003, and if an
organization uses Public Folders heavily, the new
navigational/organizational features are useless.

As has been said before, Public Folders should appear in all of the
navigational panes and behave just like Mailboxes do. Public mail folders
should be visible in the Mail pane, public calendars should be visible in
the Calendar pane, etc.

Thanks,
Tim C
MCSE, MCDST
 
P

Pat Cai [MSFT]

Hi Tim,

For Outlook 2003, we can set the calendar folder in public folder as a
shortcut. I think it would be a good solution for your problem. To do so:

1. Start up Outlook 2003. Note: Outlook must be connected so that we could
access public folder
2. Select Go -> Shortcut. We can also click the shortcut icon in the
bottom of left pane
3. Select Add a new shortcut in the shortcut pane, specify the calendar
folder in your public folder, and then click OK
4. You could use the shortcut anytime now. For example, switch to calendar
pane, and then click shortcut icon. The calendar's shortcut we just created
would appear here.

Hope the information helps.

Regards

Pat Cai
Microsoft Online Partner Support

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
=====================================================
When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
=====================================================

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
T

Tim C

Pat,

Thank you. That works as far as it goes.

But it doesn't go far enough. I can look at the calendars of various people
in the department side by side. Or I can look at the department Vacation
calendar from Public Folders. But I should be able to look at the Vacation
calendar side by side with Mailbox calendars.

Our main operations department has large tree structures of client files and
operations procedures in Public Folders. Shortcuts are not a useful option
for them. They need access to the Public Folders at the same time as their
Mail folders. This should be possible in the Mail pane.

Thanks,
Tim C
MCSE, MCDST
 
P

Pat Cai [MSFT]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for you reply!

Based on my research, we can open other user's calendar and view it side by
side in the calendar view in Outlook 2003. To do so

1. Select File ¨C Open ¨C Other user's folder option in Outlook menu, and
then open the user's calendar. Certainly you need the very permission to do
that.
2. Switch to the Calendar pane, you will found a new checkbox of the user's
calendar listed there.

However, unfortunately, we cannot open a calendar folder in public folder
by this method. The only workaround available currently is to use shortcut.

Personally, I think the function you would like to be implemented is
reasonable. I am sorry that I cannot help you change the behavior. However,
I will pass this feedback to our product team through internal channels. In
the meantime, you may also visit the following Web site and add your
comment on this issue. Your efforts and time are greatly appreciated.

http://register.microsoft.com/regwiz/regwiz.asp

You can also write an email to [email protected]

It is always my pleasure to assist you.

Have a good day!

Regards,

Pat Cai
Microsoft Online Partner Support

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
=====================================================
When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from your issue.
=====================================================
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
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