Tips & Techniques. William Lefkovics

QA to QA Outlook QA QA Tips & Techniques QA William Lefkovics i   Contents I have Microsoft Office 2000, and I haven’t seen a need to upgrade...
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William Lefkovics

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Contents I have Microsoft Office 2000, and I haven’t seen a need to upgrade— at least, not yet! Can I purchase Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 independently, and will it work seamlessly with Office 2000? And is Business Contact Manager for Outlook included with Outlook 2003, or is it an add-on that must be purchased and installed?........................ 1 If I migrate from a single Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 server to a single Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 server, will my Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 clients still be able to use their free/busy information?..................................................... 1 How do I Get IMAP To: field information in Outlook 2003?............................................ 2 How do I troubleshoot IMAP connectivity in Outlook 2003?.......................................... 2 IMAP Logging............................................................................................................... 2 TCP/IP Packet Captures................................................................................................. 4 How do I determine mailbox delegates?........................................................................... 5 How do I import and export contacts with Outlook 2007?.............................................. 7 How does Outlook support RSS feeds?........................................................................... 10 How do you delete and recreate corrupt Outlook rules?................................................. 13 How can I configure Microsoft Office Outlook’s alerts for new items?............................ 14 How can I clean up the mailbox in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007?.............................. 15 How do you share an RSS Feed?...................................................................................... 17 How do I centralize management of personal safelists in Outlook 2007?..................... 18 How do I aggregate Safelists?.......................................................................................... 22 How can I enable and use Microsoft Office Outlook 2007’s Instant Search feature?...... 23 How can I preview attachments in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007?............................... 26 How does Microsoft Office Outlook 2007’s business card Contacts feature work?......... 29

ii   How does Microsoft Office Outlook’s calendar handle holidays? Can I specify other countries’ holidays?........................................................................... 31 How does Microsoft Office Outlook 2007’s Instant Search feature work?....................... 32 How can I use an alternate address with Exchange Server?............................................. 33 How can I prevent users from using Microsoft Office Outlook’s delegation feature?.... 38

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At a glance, learn valuable tips and techniques to solve common problems administrators face with Microsoft Office Outlook. In a concise Q&A-type format, William Lefkovics explains everything from how to make Outlook more secure for your organization to how to help users set up and share RSS feeds.

Q

I have Microsoft Office 2000, and I haven’t seen a need to upgrade—at least, not yet! Can I purchase Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 independently, and will it work seamlessly with Office 2000? And is Business Contact Manager for Outlook included with Outlook 2003, or is it an add-on that must be purchased and installed?

A

Yes, you can purchase Outlook 2003 separately and use it in conjunction with Office 2000. This integration isn’t perfect, however. I used that scenario at a 100-user enterprise in 2003 and ran into compatibility issues when users tried to set Microsoft Word as their email editor. We were fine when everyone was set to HTML or Plain Text, as long as Word wasn’t selected. Business Contact Manager is an add-on, but you don’t need to buy it. You can download the Business Contact Manager Update for Outlook 2003 here. Note that the download employs Microsoft’s validation utility.

Q A

If I migrate from a single Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 server to a single Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 server, will my Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 clients still be able to use their free/busy information? Exchange 2007 implements an availability service to host free/busy instead of a public folder in Exchange 2003; however, clients prior to Outlook 2007 can’t use this service. They require the public folders. Assuming you’re making a standard migration in which the Exchange 2007 server joined the Exchange 2003 organization at installation for mailbox migration, you can still use public folders. Exchange 2007 needs to be configured as a public folder replica to allow free/busy information to transfer to the new server. Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

2    Prior to removing the last Exchange 2003 server, you need to be sure that the Exchange 2007 server hosts a replica of the public folder hierarchy with the Schedule+ Free/Busy system folder. Legacy free/busy should be available when installing an Exchange 2007 server into an Exchange 2003 organization as Exchange 2007 will include a public folder store for it. Outlook 2003 clients will not have connectivity issues if this is followed. You can find more information about this topic in the deployment guide for Exchange 2007. Also see the Microsoft TechNet article “How to Install Exchange 2007 in an Existing Exchange Server 2003 Organization.” As always with a new deployment, testing should be carried out to ensure correct operation.

Q A

How do I Get IMAP To: field information in Outlook 2003?

Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and IMAP have had a somewhat rocky marriage. Even Outlook Express, a non-blood relative, manages IMAP more effectively and a little more completely. A small example is reflected in the header content that Outlook retrieves from the server. IMAP4 revision 1 (rev1) servers hold Request for Comments (RFC) 2822 header information for every SMTP message received. Client implementations of IMAP can parse that header information and fetch values such as “Date:”, “Received:”, “Subject:” and “To:”. I might want to sort or search headers in my inbox, based on the value in the To: field at the client level online or offline. Outlook Express includes this value in its headers; this is common but optional in IMAP email clients. The Microsoft Office team dropped the To: value from its implementation of IMAP in Outlook to save bandwidth costs and make the connection more efficient. A trick I’ve found is to generate an arbitrary client-side rule in the Outlook Rules Wizard that queries the value of the To: field in some way. An example might be a rule to move messages addressed to [email protected] to a certain folder. Doing so forces Outlook to include the To: field information from the server when downloading IMAP message headers.

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How do I troubleshoot IMAP connectivity in Outlook 2003?

Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 is equipped to serve as an email client using the Internet-standard IMAP4 revision 1 (rev1) as a protocol, as outlined in Request for Comments (RFC) 3501. IMAP connections pose unique challenges for Outlook, which it doesn’t always meet successfully. At times you might need to troubleshoot IMAP connectivity between your Outlook 2003 client and the IMAP server you’re using. Here are some tips that can help you with such troubleshooting.

IMAP Logging Outlook can log its communications with messaging servers. To initiate transport logging in Outlook, from the Tools menu, select Options, Other, Advanced Options. Then select the Enable logging (troubleshooting) check box, as Figure 1 shows.

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(For more information about enabling transport logging, see the Microsoft articles “How to enable transport logging in Outlook” and “How to turn on the Enable Mail Logging option for troubleshooting in Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007.”) This function doesn’t discern between protocols or email accounts. If you have multiple protocols in your account settings, enabling this transport logging will generate log files for all protocols across all accounts. POP3, SMTP, and Messaging API (MAPI) protocols are logged in a single file called OPMLog. log, whereas Hotmail connections are logged to Hotmailx. log. You can find the IMAP logs in \Documents and Settings\ username\Local Settings\Temp\outlook logging\accountname\imapx.log. New IMAP log files are created for every Send/Receive action, whether manually initiated or based on schedule frequency and are incremented by 1—for example, IMAP0.log, IMAP1.log, IMAP2.log. You’ll need to restart Outlook for logging to begin. Be Figure 1: Enabling transport logging aware that Outlook doesn’t provide functionality to purge logs in Outlook 2003 from these folders as they grow. You’ll need to take additional action to prevent the folders from reaching sizes that impede computer performance, by either manually deleting logs or scripting a solution to do so. If you’re using Outlook 2003 with at least SP1, you’ll see the text Logging Enabled in the window title bar as a reminder to disable this functionality after you’re finished troubleshooting. Transport logging is something you want to implement for troubleshooting purposes only and disable when it’s no longer required. While logging is enabled, Outlook creates new IMAP logs for each send/receive connection with the IMAP server. When you restart Outlook after enabling logging, you might see a larger file in the logs; this larger file indicates an initial header synchronization. Our sample log, the imap20.log file in Figure 2, shows the type of information contained in a typical IMAP log file. Figure 2: Outlook 2003 IMAP log file

Microsoft Internet Messaging API 6.00.2900.3028 (xpsp_sp2_gdr.061107-0012) IMAP Log started at 04/05/2007 14:25:08 IMAP: 14:25:08 [db] Connecting to ‘mail.lefkovics.net’ on port 143.IMAP: 14:25:08 [db] OnNotify: asOld = 0, asNew = 4, ae = 0 IMAP: 14:25:08 IMAP: 14:25:08 IMAP: 14:25:08 IMAP: 14:25:08 CAPABILITY IMAP: 14:25:08

[db] [db] [db] [rx]

OnNotify: asOld = 4, asNew = 5, OnNotify: asOld = 5, asNew = 5, OnNotify: asOld = 5, asNew = 5, * OK IMAP4rev1 SmarterMailIMAP:

ae = 2 ae = 4 ae = 3 14:25:08 [tx] dlx5

[db] OnNotify: asOld = 5, asNew = 5, ae = 3

Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

4    IMAP: 14:25:08 [rx] * CAPABILITY IMAP4 IMAP4rev1 IMAP: 14:25:08 [db] OnNotify: asOld = 5, asNew = 5, ae = 3 IMAP: 14:25:08 [rx] dlx5 OK CAPABILITY completed IMAP: 14:25:08 [tx] LOGIN command sent IMAP: 14:25:08 [db] OnNotify: asOld = 5, asNew = 5, ae = 3 IMAP: 14:25:08 [rx] bnkr OK LOGIN completed IMAP: 14:25:08 [tx] bvwe LSUB “” “*” IMAP: 14:25:08 [db] OnNotify: asOld = 5, asNew = 5, ae = 3 IMAP: 14:25:08 [rx] * LSUB (\Marked) “/” “Junk E-mail” IMAP: 14:25:09 [db] OnNotify: asOld = 5, asNew = 5, ae = 3 IMAP: 14:25:09 [rx] * LSUB (\Marked) “/” “Research” IMAP: 14:25:09 [rx] * LSUB (\Unmarked) “/” “Sent” IMAP: 14:25:09 [rx] bvwe OK LSUB completed IMAP: 14:25:09 [tx] guyv STATUS “Junk E-mail” (UNSEEN) IMAP: 14:25:09 [db] OnNotify: asOld = 5, asNew = 5, ae = 3IMAP: 14:25:09 [rx] * STATUS {11} IMAP: 14:25:09 [rx] Buffer (literal) of length 11 IMAP: 14:25:09 [rx] (UNSEEN 58) IMAP: 14:25:09 [db] OnNotify: asOld = 5, asNew = 5, ae = 3 IMAP: 14:25:09 [rx] guyv OK STATUS completed IMAP: 14:25:09 [tx] nhaf STATUS “Research” (UNSEEN) IMAP: 14:25:09 [db] OnNotify: asOld = 5, asNew = 5, ae = 3 IMAP: 14:25:09 [rx] * STATUS Research (UNSEEN 8) IMAP: 14:25:09 [db] OnNotify: asOld = 5, asNew = 5, ae = 3 IMAP: 14:25:09 [rx] nhaf OK STATUS completed IMAP: 14:25:09 [tx] vc1a STATUS “Sent” (UNSEEN)IMAP: 14:25:09 [db] OnNotify: asOld = 5, asNew = 5, ae = 3 IMAP: 14:25:09 [rx] * STATUS Sent (UNSEEN 0) IMAP: 14:25:09 [db] OnNotify: asOld = 5, asNew = 5, ae = 3 IMAP: 14:25:09 [rx] vc1a OK STATUS completed IMAP: 14:25:56 [tx] Dropping connection, LOGOUT sent IMAP: 14:25:56 [db] Connection to ‘mail.lefkovics.net’ closed. IMAP: 14:25:56 [db] OnNotify: asOld = 5, asNew = 0, ae = 5 In that file, we can see the initial connection to the IMAP server, a status check on the various subscribed folders, and a LOGOUT and disconnection from the IMAP server. This log file identifies a normal, updated IMAP client.

TCP/IP Packet Captures You can also use TCP/IP packet capturing or sniffing to troubleshoot IMAP connectivity between Outlook 2003 and its IMAP server. For packet capture, I use the free Wireshark or its predecessor, Ethereal. (Development on Ethereal has stopped, and the project continues under the new name of Wireshark.) Figure 3 shows a typical packet capture (using Ethereal 0.99.0) of an IMAP session

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between Outlook 2003 and its IMAP server. It identifies the connection and logon and the presence of 5,858 items in the inbox, called EXISTS. You can infer that SSL isn’t used for this example, since the password () is visible. These two troubleshooting techniques can help you verify connectivity problems between Outlook 2003 and the IMAP server. Although they might not solve your IMAP problems with Outlook, they can show possible issues in the client/server session. Once you’ve identified such issues, you’re well equipped to delegate more troubleshooting to your ISP or administrator. For more information about IMAP, see “RFC 2060: Internet Message Access Protocol - Version 4 rev1.”

Q A

Figure 3: Packet capture of an IMAP-Outlook session

How do I determine mailbox delegates?

In an environment running Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 or later, delegates are users who have been granted permission to access another user’s mailbox or folders therein. In most situations, delegate access is configurable by the mailbox owner. Assigning delegate access requires that the delegate is connected to Exchange via Messaging API (MAPI) and resides in the same Exchange organization as the accounts to which he or she is being granted access. In Outlook, you’ll find the Delegate tab under Tools, Options, as Figure 1 shows. At this point, the administrator is probably not aware of a change in mailbox folder access, although if the Application event log diagnostics log-

Figure 1: Delegating mailbox access permissions

Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

6      ging is set to at least minimum for Information Store logons, it will log when users access other users’ folders. When delegate access is granted, basic configuration information is updated in Active Directory (AD). If an administrator wants to know to what extent delegate access is being used across an Exchange organization, he or she can use ADSI Edit to view certain user attributes in AD. If a user’s mailbox has delegates, the names of the delegates will be listed in the multivalue attribute called publicDelegates. If the user is a delegate, then the mailboxes for which the user is a delegate are listed in the publicDelegatesBL attribute. Figure 2 shows the ADSI Edit attribute listing for my mailbox. The publicDelegates value shows that Kevin Miller is a delegate. ADSI Edit isn’t the best tool for querying a large number of attriFigure 2: Viewing mailbox delegates butes. To check all the mailboxes in the organization, you can use the Ldifde command-line utility to export the AD values queried from all mailboxes. The following sample command shows how to do so: C:\>ldifde -f delegates.txt -d “ou=users,dc=domain,dc=com” -l name,publicDelegates,publicDelegatesBL -r “(|(publicDelegates=*)(publicDelegatesBL=*))” In this command, -f assigns the output to the file named delegates.txt, -d isolates the organizational unit (OU) in the directory to query, -l determines which attributes to list in the output, and -r filters for objects with the attribute values you specify. Running this command took about 10 seconds on an AD with 320 objects (users and resources). Larger enterprises likely will have third-party tools, such as Quest Software’s Quest Spotlight on Active Directory, for this kind of effort. The command output will provide general information about how much delegate access is being used in the organization and can show who is a delegate and who has delegates. The following sample output shows that Kevin Miller is a delegate of William Lefkovics, as identified by the value in

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publicDelegates, and that William Lefkovics is a delegate of Kevin Miller, as the publicDelegatesBL attribute shows. dn: CN=William Lefkovics,OU=Recipients,OU=Users,DC=wlkmmas,DC=org changetype: add publicDelegatesBL: CN=Kevin Miller,OU=Recipients,OU=Users,DC=wlkmmas,DC=org name: William Lefkovics dn: CN=Kevin Miller,OU=Recipients,OU=Users,DC=wlkmmas,DC=org changetype: add publicDelegates: CN=William Lefkovics,OU=Recipients,OU=Users,DC=wlkmmas,DC=org name: Kevin Miller The command returns only delegate use and doesn’t identify folder-specific permissions granted by users. Folder-specific permissions are stored in Exchange as MAPI permissions for each folder. You can retrieve those permissions through scripting with the ACL.dll tool from the Windows software development kit (SDK) or with PFDavAdmin. The documentation accompanying PFAdmin. exe, which you’ll find at http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/f/0/2f0d72e2-a97a-49b6-879a3b405cab017e/PFDAVAdmin.EXE explains how to export mailbox permissions to a text file. The Microsoft article “How To Use ACL Object and CDO (1.21) to List Folder Permissions for a MAPI Folder” (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240911) shows how to use the ACL.dll tool. AD supports LDAP standards, and therefore any language or script that can assemble and call an LDAP query can access these attributes. Among these options is Windows PowerShell, which is supported on Windows 2003 SP1 or later. PowerShell uses a directory searcher class (System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher) to store an LDAP filter and uses Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) to query AD. The properties of this class let you determine where to start your search and what values to return. Third party PowerShell extensions are also available to make this task easier. Using PowerShell for this task will be the topic for a future tip, but in the meantime, you can see an example of using PowerShell to query AD in the article “Searching the Active Directory with PowerShell.” (http:// blogs.technet.com/benp/archive/2007/03/26/searching-the-active-directory-with-powershell.aspx.)

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How do I import and export contacts with Outlook 2007?

I use Microsoft Office Outlook nearly every day and have for more than a decade. I store information in Outlook that might be better stored elsewhere, but I like having contact information conveniently accessible. Because Outlook is usually open while I work, information I maintain there is typically easy to retrieve or query. I also use Microsoft Excel a lot. Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 can export contacts in several different formats by going to File, Import and Export , Export to a File . There are options for exporting

Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

8      contacts to comma separated values (.csv) files, tab separated values (.txt), a specified Outlook personal folder file (.pst), as well as Excel and Microsoft Access formats. Take note of the file type for Access and Excel, which Figure 1 shows.

Figure 1: Exporting Outlook contacts to an Excel file

They both specify “97-2003,” which Office 2007 renders in what it calls “compatibility mode.” Outlook 2007 can’t use the new default format of its Office 2007 suite peers for the purposes of exporting or importing data, so content to be imported from Excel or Access needs to be saved in the older 97-2003-ompatible format first. Exporting to an Access or Excel file will show all the available options for describing a contact entry. As Table 1 shows, there are nearly 100 fields available to configure for contacts. These fields—column headings in Excel or Access files—correspond to the various fields available when you add a new contact through the Outlook 2007 UI.

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Fields for contacts in Outlook 2007 Title

BusinessPhone

Email2DisplayName

FirstName

BusinessPhone2

Email3Address

MiddleName

Callback

Email3Type

LastName

CarPhone

Email3DisplayName

Suffix

CompanyMainPhone

Gender

Company

HomeFax

GovernmentIDNumber

Department

HomePhone

Hobby

JobTitle

HomePhone2

HomeAddressPOBox

BusinessStreet

ISDN

Initials

BusinessStreet2

MobilePhone

InternetFreeBusy

BusinessStreet3

OtherFax

Keywords

BusinessCity

OtherPhone

Language1

BusinessState

Pager

Location

BusinessPostalCode

PrimaryPhone

ManagersName

BusinessCountryRegion

RadioPhone

Mileage

HomeStreet

TTYTDDPhone

Notes

HomeStreet2

Telex

OfficeLocation

HomeStreet3

Account

OrganizationalIDNumber

HomeCity

Anniversary

OtherAddressPOBox

HomeState

AssistantsName

Priority

HomePostalCode

BillingInformation

Private

HomeCountryRegion

Birthday

Profession

OtherStreet

BusinessAddressPOBox

ReferredBy

OtherStreet2

Categories

Sensitivity

OtherStreet3

Children

Spouse

OtherCity

DirectoryServer

User1

OtherState

EmailAddress

User2

OtherPostalCode

EmailType

User3

OtherCountryRegion

EmailDisplayName

User4

AssistantsPhone

Email2Address

WebPage

BusinessFax

Email2Type

Email2DisplayName

Table 1: Fields available for describing contacts in Outlook 2007

Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

10    Importing a large number of contacts, especially from multiple sources, might require some management of duplicate entries. Outlook determines duplication through names and email addresses only. After navigating through File, Import and Export, Import from another program or file and selecting the file type you’re importing (e.g., Access or Excel), you select one of the following three options for handling duplicates: • Replace duplicates with items imported • Allow duplicates to be created • Do not import duplicate items If you allow duplicates to be created, which is the default, you might want to remove duplicates at a later time. Outlook doesn’t provide a comprehensive mechanism for doing this but you can manipulate views in Outlook’s contacts folder to assist this manual process. If the duplicates were part of a single import, then they share a common modified date. By presenting the contacts in order of modified date, you can more easily capture the duplicates from that period. You could also export the entire contents of the contacts folder to another source, such as Access or Excel. Then remove the duplicates from the database or spreadsheet and re-import the cleaned contacts. If you’re importing from an Excel worksheet in which contacts were added manually, you might need to redefine a named range. The Microsoft article “Importing from Microsoft Excel requires named range in Outlook,” (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/196743) explains this problem. To extend or name a new range in Excel 2007, you use the Name Manager under the Formula menu.

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How does Outlook support RSS feeds?

The evolution of RSS has been tumultuous, resulting in various versions with different acronym definitions, depending on the influencing party—for example, RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.90/1.0), Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91), and Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0). In addition, a new syndication specification named Atom was developed to consolidate and advance RSS. Atom makes RSS easier to visualize for users, consolidates versioning, and uses Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards. Atom was implemented through the IETF proposal process as Request for Comments (RFC) 4287. Now that RSS has gone mainstream, having RSS functionality in a personal information manager (PIM) is important. Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 does not provide native RSS feed functionality, although a few third-party options are available for incorporating RSS. NewsGator and intraVnews both integrate well with Outlook 2003. Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 provides the ability to consume RSS feeds natively. Office 2007’s built-in RSS feed reader, or aggregator, supports RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0, RSS 0.9x, Atom 1.0, and Atom 0.3. Several methods let you add new RSS feeds to Outlook 2007’s aggregator. If the computer running Outlook 2007 also has Internet Explorer (IE) 7.0 installed, then IE 7.0’s Common Feed List feature makes RSS feeds added through IE 7.0 also available to Outlook 2007. The Common Feed List is a local XML cache of the subscribed feeds held in individual files. In Windows Vista, feeds are stored in C: \Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Feeds. This cache is accessible to other applications that run under the same user account, including Outlook 2007. Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

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You can also add RSS feeds to Outlook by applying the specific URL for the XML file in one of the RSS or Atom formats. The Account Settings option is used for feed administration. To add a new RSS feed, select Tools, Account Settings, RSS Feeds, New. Enter or copy and paste the feed URL, as Figure 1 shows, and click Add. Outline Processor Markup Language Figure 1: Adding a new RSS feed to Outlook (OPML) files also let you import and export RSS feeds. An OPML file is an XML file that’s suitable for describing lists. OPML files are probably most noted for their ability to share lists of RSS feeds. Outlook 2007 can import from and export to a properly formatted OPML file. The import process lets the user select individual feeds within an OPML file while importing, as Figure 2 shows. RSS feed content retrieval is initiated by the client application. Outlook polls a syndication source for new items at regular intervals, with the default interval Figure 2: Selecting RSS feeds while importing an OPML file set as once per day. If the default storage location for Outlook is configured to be a Microsoft Exchange Server mailbox, then Outlook can store RSS feed content in the user’s mailbox on the Exchange server. If Exchange is not used, then Outlook downloads RSS content to a local .pst file. In either case, RSS feed content arrives in the default mailbox storage location through the Outlook client. This is important because RSS content bypasses real-time email server antivirus applications. If RSS content is stored in an Exchange mailbox, then using an Exchange-aware antivirus solution to scan the Message Store might be necessary. Feed enclosures are file attachments that are made available through RSS feeds. Enclosures present security risks in the same way that email attachments do. Outlook 2007 disables the automatic download of feed enclosures by default. You can change this setting in the Feed Properties window. Of course, a current file-level antivirus defense is also recommended. Note that RSS feeds do Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

12    not flow through any Exchange-based antivirus solution that you might deploy—they would be caught only through a Message Store scan. As I already mentioned, the Account Settings option lets you administer RSS feeds in Outlook 2007. Figure 3 shows how to add, remove, or change feeds.

Figure 3: Adding, removing, or changing RSS feeds

Unfortunately, the Account Settings window is not expandable, and because of the nature of some of its configuration options, you must close the window before you can return to an Outlook folder. Thus, Account Settings is a poor choice for an RSS management interface. A better option would be a separate RSS subscriptions window, employed by a third-party aggregator that works with Outlook. Individual feeds have some specific settings that you can use the Account Settings option to configure. In the Account Settings window, double-click a feed, or select a feed and click Change. In the properties page that opens (i.e., the RSS Feed Options window), set the feed’s delivery location, and specify whether to automatically download enclosures and whether to download the full HTML version. Figure 4 shows these options. You can also control a feed’s polling frequency.

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Figure 4: Configuring specific RSS feed settings

Although Outlook 2007 offers native RSS feed functionality, it is not a very scalable solution and does not provide easy granular administration of feeds. If a user subscribes to more than a couple dozen feeds, then Outlook 2007 might not be the best tool for the job. Third-party solutions that integrate with Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2003 provide a more complete solution with easier administration than Outlook 2007’s RSS implementation. However, Outlook 2007 does provide an email-like interface for users to access several important RSS feeds.

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How do you delete and recreate corrupt Outlook rules?

In Microsoft Office Outlook 2000 and earlier, user-created rules and alerts are stored in their own file ending in .rwz, located in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\ Microsoft\Outlook. In Outlook 2002 and later, rules are stored in a hidden table called Associated Contents, within the default mail store. For example, if the default delivery location is a Microsoft Exchange Server mailbox, then rules are stored in a hidden table called Folder Associated Contents, representing hidden items in the inbox. An IMAP account cannot be the default account in Outlook; rules created within an IMAP account are stored separately in the IMAP .pst file. If you use different versions of Outlook to access the same profile, you need to be aware of Outlook version compatibility problems that can corrupt your rules. The safest approach is to use the

Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

14    most current version of Outlook to create or edit rules—especially if you use Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, which expands the functionality for rules. Rule corruption can also occur if you upgrade to Outlook 2007, then uninstall the program and revert to an earlier version (perhaps after the trial period ends). The previous version of Outlook might then deny access to the rules, returning an error message such as “Your stored rules appear to have a bad format.” Restoring an Exchange mailbox from backup, especially if the mailbox had been accessed with an earlier version of Outlook, can also result in incompatibilities with rules. A couple of methods exist for dealing with this problem. If the rules reside in an Exchange Server 2003 mailbox, then you might be able to use OWA to access and delete them. Exchange 2003’s OWA rules administration allows for basic rule creation. You can then use OWA or Outlook to generate replacement rules. Some exceptional rules require an Outlook client for modification. Unfortunately, Exchange Server 2007 removes rule administration from the OWA interface, until SP1. You can use Outlook switches (i.e., /cleanrules, /cleanclientrules, and /cleanserverrules) to remove corrupt rules. The cleanrules switch deletes all the rules for all the accounts in a user profile. The switches cleanclientrules and cleanserverrules delete only the type of rules named in the switch (i.e., client-side or server-side rules). Server-side rules contain actions that can be performed solely by the Exchange server. Client-side rules require the Outlook client to facilitate the defined action. For example, a rule that assigns a specific category to a message is a client-side rule because category information is stored in the user’s computer registry. A rule that moves a message from a specific address to the Deleted Items folder is a server-side rule because Exchange can manage all the actions for that rule from the server. To execute the Outlook switches, launch Outlook from the Start, Run menu or from a command prompt. After you use /cleanrules to delete all the rules, you can recreate the desired ones. Some people use rules extensively and might find that recreating them from scratch is tedious and frustrating. To avoid recreating rules, you can export them to a file to back up or to migrate them to another account, profile, or workstation. To export and import rules in Outlook 2002 and later, select Tools, Rules and Alerts, Options. Clicking the Export Rules button assembles an .rwz file that will be saved at a user-determined file location. Clicking the Import Rules button imports the .rwz file.

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How can I configure Microsoft Office Outlook’s alerts for new items?

Outlook has several methods of alerting a user to the arrival of new email messages. You can configure a sound to identify new message, the mouse pointer can change briefly to a flying envelope icon, an envelope can appear in the task bar, or a new item alert box can pop up. You can configure one or all these options from Outlook’s Tools menu. To do so, select Email Options, Advanced E-mail Options, and select the check boxes for the options you want in the When new items arrive in my inbox section. Each of these alerts is fleeting and doesn’t require any user action to make the alert disappear. The interface does let you extend the time that a new email alert box is visible—as long as 30 seconds, although you can edit the registry to extend that time. To make this registry change, go to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\ Common\DesktopAlerts subkey and open the DWORD parameter for TimeOn. Change the base to

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Decimal and enter the time in milliseconds that the new email alert box should remain open. A decimal entry of 300,000ms translates to 300 seconds (5 minutes) and a hexadecmal value of 000493e0. (Note that this entry is for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, which is represented by the 12.0 in the path; edit this value to 11.0 for Microsoft Office Outlook 2003.) I had a client who wanted to force email recipients to acknowledge the arrival of messages from important customers or supervisors. Outlook provides a rule that you can use to generate a New Item Alert window that the recipient must manually close. You can use any of the conditions available in Outlook’s New Rule Wizard to control when a New Item Alert window is presented. In addition, you can use the wizard to customize the New Item Alert window popup message. For example, I created a rule to make users less likely to ignore the arrival of a new email message from Tony Soprano. If users receive a message from Tony Soprano ([email protected]), the text You have a message from Da Boss! is displayed in the New Item Alert window, as Figure 1 shows.

Figure 1: Using Outlook's New Rule Wizard to generate a New Item Alert window

Q A

How can I clean up the mailbox in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007?

If you exceed your organization’s mailbox quota, you’ll likely receive a warning from your email administrator. Even if you don’t receive a warning, your personal folder file (PST) might just get so large that it negatively affects Outlook’s performance on your system. Like Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2002, Outlook 2007 provides basic tools for users to reduce and control the amount of data they store in their mailbox or personal folders. To access these tools, from Outlook’s Tools menu, select Mailbox Cleanup. You’ll see the Mailbox Cleanup window, which includes these five cleanup options, as Figure 1 shows: 1. The first option lets you manage the size of the mailbox. Clicking the View Mailbox Size button shows in kilobytes the individual folder sizes that comprise the mailbox’s total volume. This information can help you identify where attention is most needed to reduce the amount of storage necessary for the account. If you’re close to exceeding your quota and you’re worried about not Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

16    receiving future messages, moving or deleting large items will have the greatest immediate effect on mailbox size. 2. The second option provides a filtered search for content older than a certain date or larger than a certain size. A user can query his or her mailbox for items beyond a specified age in days or size in kilobytes. The returned query lists items that include many good candidates for archiving or deletion. Alternatively, you can create search folders in Outlook to dynamically provide such lists of items on an ongoing basis, so that you don’t have to query the mailbox each time you need to obtain the list items that meet your age or size criteria. To create a search folder, from Outlook’s File menu, select New, Search Folder, and specify the age and message size. 3. The third option, AutoArchive, moves content from the mailbox or PST to a separate archive PST. The autoarchiving option in Outlook 2007 (as well as Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2000) still doesn’t provide a confirmation or configuration screen when you click it, but instead enters directly into an archiving session. 4. The fourth option lets you empty the deleted items folder. Clicking the View Deleted Items Size button tells you the size of the deleted items folder and any subfolders, in kilobytes. 5. The fifth configuration option is enabled only if you have conflicting versions of items. This option helps clean up the mailbox by letting you purge the duplicate versions of items—those that Outlook deems to be the same, but in conflict. Many of the options available in Outlook 2007’s Mailbox Cleanup window are available elsewhere as well (e.g., archiving, emptying deleted items) or can be centrally managed by an email administrator in a corporate setting. However, this all-in-one interface will help users have a more current and better-performing client experience.

Figure 1: Configuring Outlook's Mailbox Cleanup options

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Q A

How do you share an RSS Feed?

When using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 as an RSS aggregator, you can easily share subscribed RSS feeds with others. You can either right-click an RSS feed item and select Share This Feed, or you can click the Share This Feed button when an RSS feed item is open. Figure 1 shows an RSS feed in Outlook 2007 Right-click an item listed within the folder for that feed to see a shortcut menu.

Figure 1: RSS feed in Outlook 2007

Selecting Share This Feed generates a new email message from the default Outlook 2007 account with the URL for the RSS feed embedded in the email form. Upon receipt of the email message, the Add this RSS Feed button appears in the Outlook 2007 client, as shown in Figure 2.

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Figure 2: Add this RSS Feed button in Outlook 2007 Client

Recipients can use this button to add the accompanying RSS feed to their Outlook 2007 RSS subscriptions with a single click. Other email clients, including Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 (or earlier versions) or Web email clients (e.g., Google Gmail) present recipients with the RSS feed URL, and the recipients manually add it to their preferred RSS aggregator. It’s easier to share or forward RSS feeds when both sender and recipient are using Outlook 2007, whether you’re advising team members of a new internal Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 RSS subscription or sharing an RSS-enabled Internet calendar for collaboration, for example.

Q A

How do I centralize management of personal safelists in Outlook 2007

Across its many different account types, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 provides personal whitelist and blacklist functionalities, which let users maintain lists of email addresses exempt from junk mail filtering and lists of email addresses that should automatically be blocked. You can find these lists in Outlook 2007 by choosing Tools, Options and clicking Junk E-mail on the Preferences tab. Click the Safe Senders tab, and you’ll see a list similar to the one shown in Figure 1.

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Figure 1: Safe Sender tab on the Junk E-mail Options page

Addresses and domains from safe senders, safe recipients, and blocked senders lists are stored in the default mailbox store Inbox as hidden items. Note that these lists can be exported to or imported from text files. For more information about these lists, see Table 1.

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Safe List

Description

Safe Senders

Email addresses of senders on this whitelist aren't considered junk

Safe Recipients

Recipient addresses, such as external mailing lists, on this list aren't considered junk

Blocked Senders

Addresses on this blacklist are always treated as junk

Table 1: Outlook 2007/2003 Junk Email Custom Lists

You can have some control over the content users keep on those lists by providing them a base list at startup. The Office Customization Tool (OCT) in Office 2007 lets administrators configure the path to safelist text files to use for deployment. The OCT replaces the Custom Installation Wizard from Office 2000 through 2003, so this is for Outlook 2007 only. The actual text files used for the safelists can be updated as required by company policies in the path identified in the OCT. The OCT requires Windows Installer 3.1 on both the destination client machines and the computer you use to create the configuration files. You can download Windows Installer 3.1 from www.microsoft.com/downloads/ details.aspx?familyid=889482FC-5F56-4A38-B838-DE776FD4138C&displaylang=en. To initiate the OCT, run Office 2007 setup.exe from the command line or run line with the /admin switch. Figure 2 shows the OCT with the safelist text files identified in Figure 1.

Figure 2: OCT safelist text files

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After you configure the desired settings, save the Office setup configuration file. Typically, OCT will be part of the initial rollout for Office 2007. However, you can also use OCT to update a particular user setting as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: OCT user configuration

This update is performed by reinstalling Outlook 2007 changing only the custom settings outlined in the Setup customization file. For Outlook 2007 installations in Active Directory (AD) environments, use Group Policy to update configuration items accessible in Group Policy Object (GPO) templates. The Outlook administration template Outlk12.adm is available as part of the 2007 Office System Administrative Templates (ADM) download at www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=92d8519a-e143-4aee-8f7ae4bbaeba13e7&DisplayLang=en. In Group Policy Management Console (GPMC), load the Outlook template, outlk12.adm, into a GPO typically the default domain policy) and update the desired configurations. Figure 4 shows the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Group Policy Object Editor snap-in with the Junk E-mail settings page for Outlook 2007. The path to the safelists can be enabled at this point.

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Figure 4: Group Policy Object Editor Junk E-mail settings

It’s a good idea to keep centrally managed lists of safe senders, safe recipients, and blocked enders on a server share so you can update them easily. Alternatively, these text files can be pushed out to clients through logon scripts or Group Policy. The path established with OCT or enforced through Group Policy would reflect that location. Even if you don’t run Exchange Server, centralized junk email blacklist and whitelist management can improve message hygiene at the client.

Q A

How do I aggregate Safelists?

The lists of safe senders, safe recipients, and blocked senders are all last-step controls to message hygiene on the client. Safelist aggregation extends the reach of client configuration to an Exchange 2007 transport server. For example, neither the Edge Transport server nor the Hub Transport server with the antispam agents installed need to waste resources filtering a message in which the sender’s email address is included in the recipient’s Contacts folder and resides in their safe recipient list. Don’t confuse safelist aggregation with server sender and recipient filtering for Exchange 2007. Information in safelist aggregation is verified during the Content Filter process, which reduces the instances of false positives because the server hygiene filters are using more specific information from the clients. Safelist aggregation isn’t an Outlook 2007 setting, but it’s certainly a benefit of using Exchange 2007 with Outlook 2007. Safelist aggregation represents a compilation of safe SMTP addresses and Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

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safe domains listed in the safe senders and safe recipients lists for a mailbox. The sum of these entries for a mailbox is called a safelist collection, which holds a maximum of 1,024 unique entries. You can implement safelist aggregation per mailbox by executing the Exchange Management Shell command: [PS]> Update-SafeList -Identity [-DomainController ] [-Type ] which takes the safelist collection data from mailboxes and places it into hashed entries stored in the AD record for the account that owns the mailbox. From there, the local Hub Transport accesses the content for filtering. That data can also be part of an Edge Synchronization subscription to allowing the Edge Transport Server to access safelist content through Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM). When users make changes to their safelists in Outlook, those changes are not automatically applied to safelist aggregation. You can schedule the PowerShell command to implement safelist aggregation at regular intervals to maintain current information for server-side content filtering. Encourage users in your organization to maintain accurate junk email whitelists and blacklists. By doing so, they can add value to the overall performance of message hygiene in the Outlook 2007 and Exchange 2007 enterprise.

Q A

How can I enable and use Microsoft Office Outlook 2007’s Instant Search feature?

One of Outlook 2007’s most empowering new features is called Instant Search. This feature is the extension of Windows Desktop Search (WDS) into Outlook 2007. WDS is included in Windows Vista; however, if you install Outlook 2007 on Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP SP2, you must download and install WDS to take advantage of Instant Search. In either case, Instant Search is enabled through Outlook 2007. The current version available for Windows 2003 and XP SP2, both 32-bit and 64-bit, is WDS 3.01. If your company has deployed centralized application management, you can use regular application distribution methodologies to install WDS 3.01. You can include WDS in a default XP SP2 workstation image, or you can use management applications such as Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS). You can also use Group Policy and the administrative template DesktopSearch30.adm, which comes with the WDS 3.01 download, to deploy and configure WDS. When you download and execute WDS 3.01, it extracts files to a temporary folder such as C:\ f543c5eadfd957a6f2980c30191. You can find the template DesktopSearch30.adm in a folder called \update within that temporary folder. In order to retrieve the .adm file, you need to copy it from the temporary location before WDS installation is complete, because the temporary folder is automatically removed after WDS 3.01 is installed. After the .adm file is imported into the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC), you can find the configurable settings within \Administrative Templates\ Windows Components\Windows Search. If you install Outlook 2007 on Windows 2003 or XP without WDS, you’ll see the prompt Click here to enable Instant Search, as Figure 1 shows.

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Figure 1: Enabling Outlook 2007's Instant Search feature in Windows 2003 or XP without WDS installed

Although the prompt seems to suggest that there’s a simple toggle switch, there isn’t. Clicking the prompt directs you to Microsoft’s WDS 3.01 download page for either Windows 2003 or XP SP2, depending on the OS being used. The Microsoft article “Description of Windows Desktop Search 3.01 and the Multilingual User Interface Pack for Windows Desktop Search 3.01” (http://support. microsoft.com/kb/917013) describes WDS 3.01 and maintains the URLs for WDS downloads for the different platforms (i.e., Windows 2003, 32-bit and 64-bit; and XP SP2, 32-bit and 64-bit). Companies tend to discourage users from downloading and installing software, including taking steps to prevent them from doing so. Administrators can disable the Instant Search prompt to prevent users from downloading WDS. To do so, select Tools, Options. Select the Other tab, and click Advanced Options. Under General Settings, clear the Show prompts to enable Instant Search check box. This setting changes the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\ Search registry subkey’s DisableDownloadSearchPrompt DWORD value to 1. You can also use Group Policy to push this value out to clients. Outlook 2007’s Group Policy template, called Outlk12.adm, is part of Office 2007’s administrative templates. To obtain Outlk12. adm, go to its download page on Microsoft’s downloads Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=92d8519a-e143-4aee-8f7a-e4bbaeba13e7). Download and install AdminTemplates.exe to use Outlk12.adm and the other Office 2007 administrative templates. WDS adds several components to the local workstation to index information and to efficiently access that index. Figure 2 shows the processes running on an XP workstation with WDS 3.01 installed. SearchIndexer.exe is highlighted, but SearchFilterHost and SearchProtocolHost were also added by the installation. While the workstation content is being indexed, WDS uses available resources to complete the index as quickly as possible. Initially, you might experience a slight performance loss accessing workstation resources, until the indexer returns resources to the system. If the user

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no longer needs the resources, the index can assume them if necessary. Busy workstations with lots of Outlook email traffic or significant file changes can exhibit some loss of performance as WDS struggles to index new changes. Outlook’s classic search interface, called Advanced Find (Ctrl+Shift+F), is no longer available in folders’ context menus. In Outlook 2007, you can access this feature by selecting Tools, Instant Search—even if Instant Search isn’t enabled. When WDS is installed and Instant Search is enabled, the Advanced Find option remains available, but only as an alternative interface to the Instant Search index. If you execute a search before a complete WDS index of Outlook items is built, the search interface generates the alert that Figure 3 shows. If you click for more details (or if you go to Tools, Instant Search, Indexing Status), you’ll be advised that indexing is still occurring, as shown in Figure 4. Instant Search seems to suffer from poor Figure 2: Viewing the processes running on an XP performance, as does Outlook 2007 in genworkstation with Outlook 2007's Instant Search eral, when dealing with a large .pst or .ost file. feature enabled Microsoft released a patch to help alleviate this problem. To download the patch, see the Microsoft article Figure 3: Viewing the alert that generates if you execute a search before the Instant “Description of the Search feature has access to a complex index of outlook items update for Outlook 2007: April 13, 2007” (http://support. microsoft.com/kb/933493). This performance patch is a must for all Outlook 2007 users.

Figure 4: Viewing the dialog box that indicates indexing is still occurring Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

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Q A

How can I preview attachments in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007?

Outlook 2007 lets you preview attachments directly in the preview pane or the body of an open message. This feature has multiple benefits: Workstation and network security are improved, and user efficiency is increased. When you click an attachment to a message, you see a prompt in the preview pane for displaying the attachment’s contents, as Figure 1 shows.

Figure 1: Viewing the prompt for displaying an attachment's contents

If you click the Preview file button, the attachment displays in the preview pane, as Figure 2 shows.

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Figure 2: Displaying an attachment in the preview pane

If you click an attachment and the extension isn’t associated with a preview handler, you’ll see a message in the preview pane that says “This file cannot be previewed because there is no previewer installed for it.” You’ll also see a link that you can click for more information about Outlook 2007 preview handlers. New Outlook 2007 preview handlers are constantly being developed. For example, Adobe recently added the previewer functionality, which is available to Outlook 2007 when Adobe Reader 8.1 or later is installed. The attachment preview feature is enabled by default. To disable the feature, select Tools, Trust Center; then open the Attachment Handling section, as Figure 3 shows, and select the Turn off Attachment Preview check box. You can use Group Policy or the Office Customization Tool (OCT) to enable this setting for administrative deployments or changes. You can also manually configure the registry subkey that controls this setting (e.g., through distribution of a .reg file). To disable the attachment preview feature when you next restart Outlook 2007, go to Figure 3: Disabling Outlook 2007's attachment preview feature

Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

28    the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Preferences\DisableAttachmentPreview registry subkey and set the DWORD value to 1. Outlook 2007’s Trust Center includes an option for listing installed preview handlers. In the Attachment Handling section, click Attachment and Document Previewers. A dialog box similar to the one that Figure 4 shows will open.

Figure 4: Viewing installed preview handlers

You can enable or disable various previewers for Outlook 2007 email accounts in this dialog box. The list of disabled items is also stored in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Office\12.0\Outlook\Resiliency\DisabledItems registry subkey. From a security standpoint, using Outlook 2007’s attachment preview is safer than using the associated application to open an attachment. Any malware or script code that’s embedded in an attachment is likely directed at weaknesses in the application expected to open the attachment. The preview pane doesn’t let scripts execute. Thus, if an infected attachment makes it past server and local filtering, the attachment preview reduces the risk of infection that occurs if an attachment is opened with its intended application. An application’s preview handler status is maintained in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT registry subtree. However, editing this subtree to manipulate preview handlers isn’t a user-friendly solution. Stephen Toub, Technical Editor for MSDN Magazine, wrote an application called the Preview Handler

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Association Editor (http://blogs.msdn.com/toub/archive/2006/12/14/preview-handler-association-editor. aspx) that parses the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT registry subtree and compiles a list of attachment extensions that you can preview in Outlook 2007. The previewer technology isn’t solely a component of Outlook. Outlook 2007 and Windows Vista subscribe to the same preview mechanism. Preview handlers are hosted applications that present read-only previews of content to their host. Hosts currently include Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) in Vista. Third-party software companies can use Microsoft-provided tools to add their documents to the list of attachments that can be previewed in Outlook 2007. For more information about Preview Handlers, see the Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit for Windows Vista and .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime Components Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/ details.aspx?familyid=c2b1e300-f358-4523-b479-f53d234cdccf) and the MSDN Preview Handlers Web site (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa969368.aspx).

Q A

How does Microsoft Office Outlook 2007’s business card Contacts feature work?

Starting with Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, users can upload digital images and include them as part of individual contacts. You’d typically use a picture of the person represented by the contact information, although you can also use company logos, caricatures, or other graphics. Outlook allows files with the extensions .bmp, .emf, .ico, .icon, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .tif, .tiff, .wmf, and .png. If you try to upload files with another extension, including files whose original extension you’ve renamed to be one of these extensions, you’ll receive an error message. Outlook 2007 on Windows Vista returns the error message “Out of memory or system resources. Close some windows or programs and try again.” Outlook 2003 on Windows XP SP2 returns the error message “Could not complete the operation. One or more parameter values is invalid.” Active Directory (AD) on Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 Server doesn’t natively allow for an image as a user attribute. However, administrators can use a custom attribute to hold a URL pointing to an intranet or network share with image files. Outlook 2007’s Contacts view includes a business card feature that displays contact information analogous to actual business cards. In this view, the user can customize individual contacts to be rendered in a specific and unique business card design. Figure 1 shows Outlook 2007’s business card view with some customized contacts.

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Figure 1: Outlook 2007's business card view

If you add a photo to a contact, Outlook displays the photo in the top right corner of the window when you read a message from that contact. Outlook also synchronizes photos to Windows Mobile devices so that they display when you use Pocket Outlook to read messages. The business card view customizations that a user makes to a contact in Outlook 2007 are specific to that contact in the user’s data storage (either their mailbox or .pst file). To share contacts as you’ve customized them, you can send them as vCards (i.e., .vcf files). Other Outlook 2007 clients will render a business card view of a contact sent as a vCard as it appears in the sender’s Contacts folder. Outlook 2003 will show the image if one was uploaded and ignore the business card customization settings. Earlier versions of Outlook will ignore the custom information in the .vcf file and render the standard contact information. To send a contact as a vCard, right-click the contact and select either Send as Business Card or Send Full Contact, In Internet Format (vCard). A new email message will open, with a .vcf file attached. Using the Send as Business Card option copies the virtual business card to the body of the new email message, as well as attaching the related .vcf file. The Send Full Contact, In Internet Format (vCard) option simply attaches the .vcf file to the email message. You can also use the Send Full Contact, In Outlook Format option to share contacts. This option uses a .msg extension. Additional methods of sharing contacts while retaining business card view customizations include exporting contacts to a .pst file, and dragging and dropping contacts to share to another Contacts folder as a delegate with write permissions to that folder. For example, a secretary might copy contacts to a supervisor’s Contacts folder.

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An enterprise that uses IMAP or POP3 with Outlook can have all employees create vCards and upload them to a network share. These vCards can then be imported into users’ contacts so everyone maintains the same set of business cards. Well-formatted virtual business cards are worth sharing.

Q A

How does Microsoft Office Outlook’s calendar handle holidays? Can I specify other countries’ holidays? I have a client who has several small retail offices in both Canada and the United States. The corporate office, where company-wide administrative functions such as payroll administration are performed, is in Vancouver, BC. Several departments wanted to view both the Canadian and American statutory holidays on their calendars. Outlook makes this task simple. Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 provides preset holiday calendars for 85 countries and 3 primary religions. The religious holiday sets cover the Islamic, Jewish, and Christian religions. Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 SP2 maintains holidays for 73 countries and the same 3 primary religions. To add holidays in both Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2003, select Options from the Tools menu. On the Preferences Figure 1: Adding holidays in Outlook tab, click Calendar Options. Clicking the Add Holidays button opens a window in which you can select countries and religions whose holidays you want to add to your Outlook calendar, as Figure 1 shows. Figure 2 shows Outlook’s calendar view with Canadian and American holidays displayed.

Figure 2: Calendar view with Canadian and American holidays

Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

32    The list of countries and religions are rendered from an editable text file named outlook.hol, which is located in \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\LCID. The LCID is the numeric ID assigned by Microsoft for their list of locales. The English - United States LCID (as opposed to the English - United Kingdom LDID) is 1033. Microsoft lists all LCIDs at http://www.microsoft.com/ globaldev/reference/lcid-all.mspx. A problem I’ve encountered with adding holidays to Outlook 2007’s calendar is that if you select a country that’s already in your calendar, Outlook “reinstalls” the holidays—which actually means that it installs an additional set of holidays for that country. Moreover, Outlook doesn’t provide a simple check box that you can clear to delete this additional set of holidays from your calendar. Instead, you must select Current View, Events from the calendar’s View menu, then manually delete duplicate or unwanted holiday entries from the list.

Q A

How does Microsoft Office Outlook 2007’s Instant Search feature work?

Outlook 2007’s Instant Search feature improves search speed because searches are applied against a dynamic index instead of sequentially querying the data store. Windows Desktop Search (WDS) continually updates the index with changes as long as resources are available to do so. WDS cedes system resources to user actions and other applications when necessary. Outlook 2007 is indexed as a function of WDS, which is primarily administered through Windows. WDS is included in Windows Vista, but it’s a separate download and installation for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Starting the Control Panel System and Maintenance applet and selecting Indexing Options opens the window that Figure 1 shows, which lists Instant Search as a search location if it’s enabled in Outlook 2007.

Figure 1: Viewing Outlook 2007's search locations Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

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Clicking the Advanced button provides additional options, as Figure 2 shows. For example, you can move the index files to a different drive to improve performance. By default, the index is located in \%systemdrive%\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data on Vista and in \%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Search\Data on XP.

Figure 2: Advanced indexing options

Q A

How can I use an alternate address with Exchange Server?

A common request in Exchange shops is for users to be able to send a message from a secondary proxy SMTP address or additional mailbox as though the message came directly from that email address. Support personnel who monitor a secondary alias or mailbox (e.g., [email protected], [email protected]) often need this capability. In addition, a merger of two enterprises might require users to send from different Exchange organizations for which no trust has been configured. Because Microsoft Office Outlook uses Messaging API (MAPI) as the message store provider, you can’t simply change the From address to reflect a different source. A limitation within MAPI prevents a profile from accessing multiple Exchange servers at the provider level. You can assign Send On Behalf Of permissions in Outlook, but doing so exposes the message’s original source address because the recipient will see the text “From User A sent on behalf of User B.” Fortunately, several options exist. 1. If the secondary address has its own object in Active Directory (AD), such as a mailbox or distribution group, then permissions can be assigned on that object to give a user or group Send As permissions. This action can only be performed by an administrator at the server; you can’t grant these permissions from the Outlook client. Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

34    To assign Send As permissions in Exchange Server 2003, perform the following steps: a. Open the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in on the Exchange 2003 server or management workstation. b. Ensure Advanced Options is selected in the View menu. c. Open the object properties (Mailbox, Group, or Mail-Enabled Contact) on which you want to assign Send As permissions, and select the Security tab. d. Click the Advanced button. e. On the Permissions tab, click Add and select the object or user to grant Send As permissions to. f. In the Select User, Computer, or Group dialog box, enter the user to assign permissions to, and click OK. g. In the Permissions Entry dialog box that opens, the value in the Apply onto dropdown box should be This object only, as in Figure 1. Select the Allow check box for the Send As permissions, as Figure 1 shows. For Exchange Server 2007 RTM, Send As permissions are administered through PowerShell. The cmdlet to invoke these permissions is Add-ADPermission. The parameters include the identity to apply the rights against, the user to grant the rights to, and the type of extended rights (which in this case is “Send As”). As an example, you’d use the following command to assign Send As rights to user William on Kevin Miller’s mailbox: Add-ADPermission -Identity “Kevin Miller” -user MOJAVE\william -extendedRights “Send As” This command returns confirmation of the rights assignment in a table. Exchange 2007 SP1 adds this functionality to the Exchange Management Console (EMC). In the EMC, selecting the Recipient Configuration object will show a list of recipients in the middle pane. Select the recipient against which Send As permissions are to be applied. In the Action Figure 1: Giving a user Send As permissions pane on the right, select the new option Manage Send As Permission. When the wizard opens, select Add and choose the user or group to grant Send As permissions to and click OK. Clicking Manage will return a summary of the configuration performed, including the equivalent PowerShell command.

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.

.

.

.

If the secondary address has its own mailbox, use Outlook to connect to the primary mailbox address as normal and use Outlook Web Access (OWA) via a Web browser to monitor the secondary mailbox. No conflict is created if a user has multiple interfaces, such as OWA and Outlook, to access different mailboxes. Use a third-party or custom application that lets you use secondary addresses as the authoritative From address for outgoing messages. Products such as Ivasoft’s ChooseFrom (http://www.ivasoft.biz/choosefrom.shtml) are implemented as transport event sinks in Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2000 Server or as custom transport agents in Exchange 2007, allowing users to select an authorized secondary SMTP address to use in the From field. The recipient will receive the message as though it were sent directly from the secondary address. This solution is appealing for enterprises, because it’s managed on the server side without any custom client configuration. Allow POP3 or IMAP4 access to the Exchange server for the secondary supported mailboxes. Users can then use Outlook for their primary mailboxes and Outlook Express (or Windows Mail on Windows Vista) to access their secondary mailboxes. For example, a user could use Outlook for his or her main mailbox communication and use the secondary (non-Outlook) POP3 or IMAP4 client to access another mailbox, such as HelpDesk. Alternatively, the POP3 or IMAP4 account access can be added to the same Outlook profile that’s used to access the mailbox with MAPI. The user must then change the account to send from whenever trying to represent the secondary mailbox (e.g., HelpDesk). If a user has a secondary proxy SMTP address assigned to his or her AD account, you can create a POP3 or IMAP4 account in the user’s profile even though the Exchange server might not be configured for Internet client protocols. This client-side method lets the user send from an address using an alternate Internet email account, even though that account doesn’t retrieve inbound messages.

For a user monitoring the Help desk with a secondary proxy address of [email protected], adding a POP3 account for the Help desk lets the user send from the SMTP address [email protected]. By default, Exchange will resolve the secondary address to the user’s AD account, and internal MAPI messages will show the primary SMTP address. However, messages destined for the Internet will reflect the address assigned to the POP3 account. This configuration is useful for answering external queries from addresses such as support, webmaster, hostmaster, postmaster, or [email protected] without revealing a specific user associated with those secondary proxy addresses. To add a “dummy” POP3 account to an existing Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 profile, from the Outlook client logged on to the user’s Exchange mailbox, select E-mail Accounts from the Tools menu. Select View or change existing e-mail accounts in the E-mail Accounts window that opens. This option lets you access the list of accounts in the profile, which should include the Exchange account. Click Add to add a new account, ensure that the POP3 radio button is selected under Server Type, and click Next to continue. You can enter your dummy POP3 account information in the window that opens. Figure 2 shows the address [email protected] for the user called Help Desk, which is also a secondary proxy address for the user William.

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Figure 2: Specifying the outbound SMTP mail server

To add a dummy POP3 account in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, select Account Settings from the Tools menu. Select the E-mail tab in the window that opens, and click New. Ensure that the radio button is selected for the service option that includes POP3, then click Next. Rather than using the default Auto Account Setup, select the check box at the bottom of the window to manually configure server settings, then click Next. Select Internet E-mail in the window that opens, and click Next. In the next window that opens, the Your Name field should contain the account name (e.g., Help Desk). The name of the POP3 mail server isn’t especially important, because we won’t actually be receiving email for this account—I typically enter localhost just to fill the field. The outbound SMTP mail server typically should be the Exchange server that hosts the user’s mailbox, although your company might have a different outbound SMTP server to use. In my example in Figure 2, this server is mail.mojavemedia.com. To be able to send messages using the Exchange server, the user must be authenticated. Click More Settings and select the Outgoing Server tab, as Figure 3 shows. Add the AD account details for the user to automatically authenticate for outbound email from this account. If the user isn’t configured to authenticate to the Exchange server or outbound SMTP server, then external messages sent from the proxy address will bounce back, Figure 3: Authenticating a user declaring that address to be unable to relay. Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

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The next step prevents Outlook from trying to retrieve POP3 email for this fake account. In Outlook 2007 or 2003, select Send/Receive, Send/Receive Settings, Define Send/Receive Groups from the Tools menu. In the Send/Receive Groups window that opens, ensure that All Accounts is selected and click Edit. In the next window that opens, select the POP3 account and clear the Receive mail items check box, as Figure 4 shows. Click OK to confirm the change. Now, when the user wants to send email outside of the company and show the mail as being directly from a secondary address, such as support@mojavemedia. com, he or she can select an alternate account in the new message form, as Figure 5 shows. The ability for users to send messages that appear to have come from a secondary address is quite useful. Perhaps future versions of Exchange and Outlook will provide a server-side solution that eliminates clientside hacks such as the Internet account option that I suggest using. Third-party companies have solved this problem on the server side, so Microsoft can undoubtedly do so as well.

Figure 4: Preventing Outlook from trying to retrieve POP3 email from a fake account

Figure 5: Selecting an alternate account from which to send an emal message

Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

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Q A

How can I prevent users from using Microsoft Office Outlook’s delegation feature?

In a standard Exchange Server organization, users can grant other employees delegate access to their mailbox or folders. This practice typically occurs when a manager grants access to an assistant, or when an employee goes on vacation and delegates mailbox access to a co-worker. However, delegation is often performed incorrectly—and sometimes even inadvertently—which can unintentionally expose information to the wrong personnel. Although I don’t know of a method for completely preventing Outlook delegation in an Exchange environment, you can prevent users from using delegation by removing access to this feature in the UI. After an Exchange account is configured, you can add delegation functionality in Outlook as an Exchange Client Extension. To access the delegation feature, select Options from the Tools menu. Select the Delegates tab, as Figure 1 shows.

Figure 1: Accessing Outlook's delegation feature

The Exchange extension for this tab is called dlgsetp.dll. The file dlgsetp.ecf, which describes dlgsetp.dll, tells Outlook how to load the .dll file for Exchange Client Extensions. You can configure the UI to tell Outlook not to load this add-in. In Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, select Trust Center from the Tools menu, and click Add-ins on the left-hand menu. At the bottom of the window, select the add-ins you want to manage (i.e., Exchange Client Extensions), as Figure 2 shows, and click Go.

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Figure 2: Selecting the add-ins to manage

In the Add-In Manager window that opens, which Figure 3 shows, you can clear the Delegate Access check box to remove the Delegates tab from Outlook’s UI. However, users can simply navigate back to this option and reenable it.

Figure 3: Removing the Delegates tab from Outlook's UI

Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

40    A solution is to delete or rename the file dlgsetp.ecf to prevent the extension from loading into Outlook. I typically rename the file from dlgsetp.ecf to dlgsetp.ecf.bak. In Outlook 2007, this file is located in \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\ADDINS. The location is similar in previous versions of Outlook; for example, in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, the path is \Program Files\ Microsoft Office\Office11\ADDINS. Renaming this file doesn’t cause Outlook to fail and doesn’t even generate an error message; the action simply prevents the Delegates tab from loading. The Delegates tab isn’t visible because the Exchange Client Extension isn’t able to load into Outlook. You might need to restart Outlook for the change to take effect. From an enterprise perspective, you might want to use a logon script or another centrally managed solution with access to the file system to rename the file dlgsetp.ecf. Keep in mind that installing patches or service packs might apply a new dlgsetp.ecf file, thereby restoring the Delegates tab. You’d then need to rename the file again. Although this solution is a bit of a hack, it might be worthwhile in your organization. Preventing users from using Outlook’s delegation feature is often easier than dealing with the ramifications of incorrect or inappropriate delegation.

Pocket Guide to Outlook Tips & Techniques

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