To Switch Identity, Must Quit All Microsoft Programs

S

Scott Bierko

Hi,

I'm running Office 2004 on a G5 with OS 10.3.9. Every time I try and
switch identites in Entourage I get a dialog box that requests me to
quit all other Microsoft programs. This is annoying, of course. Any
thoughts?

Thanks,
Scott
 
M

mmmmark

Scott Bierko said:
Hi,

I'm running Office 2004 on a G5 with OS 10.3.9. Every time I try and
switch identites in Entourage I get a dialog box that requests me to
quit all other Microsoft programs. This is annoying, of course. Any
thoughts?

Thanks,
Scott
Click to expand...

No way around this that I know of. I run across the same problem. Very few
people seem to use identities and therefore have little sympathy for those
of us that do. For my uses it is very helpful allowing me to separate
business from personal.

-Mark
 
N

Nathan Herring [MSFT]

It would be helpful to us to understand what it is that having the separate
identities for business and personal gives you that having separate accounts
does not? Are you trying to separate business and personal contacts/events?
Are there other things that are problematic when using a single identity?

-nh
 
M

mmmmark

Hi Nathan,

I realize that I _could_ set it up with one identity only. It is just
convenient to "flip that switch" to segregate my life. I have nearly 50
personal folders and over 100 folders for work. Rules sort (and/or reply
to) incoming mail and file them in these folders. I put the highest
priority folders so that they are within view on my main screen. I can see
at a glance which ones have new mail and need attention. If I used only one
identity, there would be no way to view them in this fashion since there
would be too many. When I am working, I concentrate solely on work and vice
versa. I don't like to mingle work and play.

I am not switching _users_ on my computer so I think that a preference
(turned off by default even) should enable me to switch between identities
without having to close Word, Excel, and/or Powerpoint. I realize that it
uses the addressbook/names information for autocomplete in the open apps. I
rarely use this and would love for the option of "ignorning" data so that I
could switch identities. Even if it uses the OSes keychain, the user
remains the same.

Even though I may not keep my work documents open, for example, I may still
have Word open when I try to switch identities over to personal. To
complicate matters, my wife also has a THIRD identity on this computer. It
is not hugely impossible to close apps over and over again, then open them
again, etc. But, it seems like it could be accomodated less clumsily in
software as well. Since this vestigal identity lives on from OE days, and
is billed as a feature, it ought to be more fully supported.

Does this help understand why I like it/rely on it a little better?

Thanks,
-Mark
 
R

Robin Jackson

Hi,

I'm running Office 2004 on a G5 with OS 10.3.9. Every time I try and
switch identites in Entourage I get a dialog box that requests me to
quit all other Microsoft programs. This is annoying, of course. Any
thoughts?

Thanks,
Scott
Click to expand...

Question. Why do you need to keep swapping identities?

Is it a multi-user machine or do you just have multiple email address's?

If the latter you can read all your email in one identity and don't need to
change it.

I have 3-4 email address's which all come into the one identity.

Robin
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

I'm running Office 2004 on a G5 with OS 10.3.9. Every time I try and
switch identites in Entourage I get a dialog box that requests me to
quit all other Microsoft programs. This is annoying, of course. Any
thoughts?
Click to expand...

Do you mean "what's the reason?" The reason is that (mostly) Word, and the
other apps, access Entourage's Address Book for all the features like the
Contacts toolbar, auto-completion of tooltips for contacts, mail merge, etc.
When you switch identities, Word also has to load the address book of the
new identity and lose the first one. It can only do that (it seems) by
quitting and restarting - it loads the address book at launch. Not just
address book, either: Word, Excel and PowerPoint all let you "Flag for
Follow-Up" : they make an Entourage Task for that document, with a reminder.
They make that task in the loaded identity. Again, they need to have the
correct identity loaded.

Software being software, there might be a way for MacBU to make it so that
when you switch identities, the open apps and Office Notifications all quit
the current loaded identity and load the new one - but that would bring new
problems in unsaved documents. At the very least there would have to be a
dialog alerting you and asking to save unsaved documents first. This could
sill lead to trouble if you continue to work on the open documents while in
the new identity, but I suppose it could be manageable.

But, as others have pointed out, hardly anyone actually uses multiple
identities, and of those who do, a certain percentage haven't realized that
the can simply have multiple email accounts in the same identity, and others
- who allow several people to use the same Entourage on the computer - don't
realize that they should instead set up separate OS users with Fast User
Switching enabled. I think that it would probably be quite a lot of trouble
to effect switching identities in the other Office apps, but if MacBU are
convinced that enough people really do use multiple identities, they might
consider it. So anyone reading here who does so, should answer Nathan's
question as to why you like using separate identities. He'll be feeding back
your answers to the powers that be at MacBU.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.
 
Top