Some Notes on the Machines

At long last, as found by the astonishing Tharin Brown, we are given an Outlook repair tool that really works!!!:

https://www.howto-outlook.com/products/outlooktools.htm

Something new:

https://diagnostics.outlook.com/#/?env=ExRCA

Outlook has many command line options. Several of them do various forms of cleanup, and this can help Outlook performance a lot. To do them all (as of Outlook 2013 and 2016):

1. Create C:\CLEANOUTLOOK.CMD containing the below:

"outlook.exe" ^ 
/cleanconvongoingactions ^
/cleandmrecords ^
/cleanips ^
/cleanmailtipcache ^
/cleanreminders ^
/cleanroamedprefs ^
/cleansniff

2. Find a working Outlook shortcut, do a Shift-Rightclick on it, and choose “Open file location”
3. Copy that path (e.g., C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16), paste it into a non-administrative CMD after CD, to get the CMD into that folder
4. Enter C:\CLEANOUTLOOK.CMD

Done!

If one has a Contact Group within Outlook which contains any in-company contacts, and you try to forward it outside the company, you will find that the receiver doesn’t get much. There is a way to do this:

Sender

1. First open the contact group into its own window.
2. Open Forward Group, and choose In Internet Format (vCard).
3. Send the result to your recipient. This does not generate or send a standard vCard, but it does do something we need.

Receiver

1. Receive the email. It will have a .txt file attached which looks something like the below.

Contact Group Name:	Test Contact group

Members:	

Firstname1 Lastname1	emailaddy1@company1.com
Firstname2 Lastname2	emailaddy2@company2.com
Firstname3 Lastname3	emailaddy3@company3.com

2. Copy to clipboard, the lines of the txt file which contain names and email addresses.
3. Create a blank Contact Group of appropriate name.
4. Click Add Members, From Outlook Contacts. A box named Select Members: Contacts will come up.
5. Paste the copied lines, directly into the white box to the right of the word “Members” in the Select Members: Contacts box.
6. Click OK, and the new Contact Group will be created appropriately.

This is a very long list, the most complete list I’ve seen:

https://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/commandlineswitches.htm

Lots of possibilities for cleanup and fixup.

From the amazing Matt Quick:

https://mattthequick.wordpress.com/2015/01/15/how-to-automatically-back-up-your-pst-in-outlook/

Automatic PST backups for Outlook versions 2002, 2003, 2007:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=9003

Can be made to work with Outlook 2010:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2030523/en-us

And something new for Outlook 2013:

http://outlookbackupaddin.codeplex.com/

Here is a way, using an XML file and a registry hack:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/kristinw/2013/04/19/controlling-outlook-autodiscover-behavior/

If you find that inbound emails are not going where they should go, but cannot find any Rules in Outlook or Exchange to match, they may be slightly corrupt and thus invisible. If you run Outlook with /cleanrules and /cleanconvongoingactions , this will eliminate all rules and also a queue which can be involved. A full list of command-line switches for Outlook, is here:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Command-line-switches-for-Outlook-for-Windows-079164CD-4EF5-4178-B235-441737DEB3A6

Here’s a great tool, free of charge:

http://www.vaita.com/ODIR.asp

AutoComplete, in Outlook, has a maximum number of contacts by default. This is either 1,000 or 2,000, depending on version, and can be changed by registry entry. One of the symptoms which shows up, is AutoComplete showing email addresses only for some entries, and not names.

The fix is here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2199226

If you were using Exchange 2013 or later with Outlook 2013 or later, it is thought that AutoComplete may repair itself once the maximum has been sufficiently set. If automatic repair doesn’t occur, you’ll have to manually remove AutoComplete items and recreate.