Some Notes on the Machines

The tool discussed here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287497

which actually appears to be installed with every copy of Outlook, works very well.

If the Outlook 2007 window cannot be opened, run the following command line:

outlook.exe /resetnavpane 

and try again.

If you see this, try Start/Run, then:

Outlook.exe /resetnavpane

Found by the mighty Brian Pentacost. One can do lots of interesting things with command-line parameters when starting Microsoft Outlook, things to clean Outlook out of several kinds of jams, as well as automation.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HP010031101033.aspx

To set up a catch-all mailbox in Exchange, try Michael B. Smith’s solution here for 2003:

http://theessentialexchange.com/blogs/michael/archive/2007/11/13/exchange-200x-catchall-script-version-2.aspx

and here for 2007:

http://theessentialexchange.com/blogs/michael/archive/2008/04/10/exchange-2007-catchall-mailbox.aspx

This free add-in from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8B081F3A-B7D0-4B16-B8AF-5A6322F4FD01&displaylang=en

will automatically copy Outlook PSTs to a network or other backup drive, at regular intervals.

The location of the setting is:

Tools menu
Options
E-mail Options
Advanced E-mail Options

At a customer’s site yesterday, Business Contact Manager was crashing Outlook 2003 on one machine.

First thought was to uninstall BCM and reinstall. I checked just a bit, and found that there is a 177-megabyte update from Microsoft for BCM 2003. I started it downloading, and checked for Windows updates in general. I noticed that the Microsoft XML foundation libraries and .NET 2.0 needed updating too. I put it all in (took time…), and lo and behold, Outlook 2003 loads and quits and runs, far faster than before.

One item of note: the updated BCM 2003 requires and installs MSDE, the desktop version of the Microsoft SQL database.

At locations running Office 2003 and BCM, I think we are likely to see this occur again.

The BCM update page is here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3AEC8B42-6DC5-4922-9DFB-1C82237D6B62&displaylang=en

There is also a Service Pack 1 for this BCM update, which also applies to Small Business Accounting:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=93929CAC-37F3-4EE1-931B-807703037E89&displaylang=en