Office IT Pro Blog : Outlook

Recommendations for configuring delegate scenarios in Outlook 2010

Catherine Watson — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:58:00 GMT

This post is written by Scott Bradley, a Principal Escalation Engineer for Office in the Microsoft Customer Support Services group.

Delegate Access is an Outlook feature that enables one person to act on behalf of another Outlook user. This feature is a combination of shared folder access and special handing of meeting requests. It is commonly used for manager/assistant duties, such as the assistant scheduling and sending meetings on behalf of the manager, or the assistant monitoring the manager’s email.

When a delegate works with several mailboxes of significant volume, we call this a super-delegate scenario.

Imagine super-delegate Jane, who is a delegate at the highest level of the company. Jane works in Outlook 2010 all day every day, finding emails, handling meeting information, etc. She clicks around and uses various features of Outlook 2010 with great efficiency, and her goal is to have generally good performance for each of her tasks.

Jane typically has an Outlook profile that has:

Two additional mailboxes (the executive, and the executive’s assistant) in addition to her own.
A calendar folder with several thousand items. The executive’s calendar will have at least that many items as well.
An Offline Store File (OST) that is in the 25-40 GB range.
Common folders (Deleted items, Sent items) with high item counts (greater than 20,000).

Very often, the super-delegate also has to adhere to data management constraints that you have implemented in your organization. For example, imagine that you have configured your environment such that:

PST files are not allowed in the environment – For a variety of reasons, Personal Store files (PST) which would allow Jane to use client side archiving tools to lower the size of her OST are not allowed.
Microsoft Records Management is not implemented – This would provide a server side feature set to control the size of the data files.
Jane’s company mailboxes are Office365 mailboxes – All connectivity to the mailboxes is done using the Http protocol. Network considerations prevent an online experience that offers good performance.

Sound complicated? We’re here to help. Over the years, Microsoft has developed a set of best practices for configuring super-delegate scenarios. In this blog post, I’ll cover recommendations for:

Configuring super-delegate scenarios for Outlook 2010, including calendar considerations and limits to the number of delegates.
OST sizing
Proactive monitoring
Training super delegates
Maximum number of rules

Recommendations for configuring super-delegates for Outlook 2010

There are two fundamental choices for configuring super-delegates, each with benefits and limitations. The driving factor for each of these configurations is to control the size of the OST file. For these recommendations we will not consider scenarios where folders are accessed online because the latencies typically associated with online access would be more problematic than the performance considerations around the OST size.

Option A: Add the manager’s account as secondary Exchange accounts (multi-ex)

Advantages

When an account is added as a multi-ex account, an OST is created for it, and that account’s data is cached to the new OST. In this configuration, the size of the delegate OST will not grow.
The multi-ex account can be configured with the same feature set as a “primary” mailbox account, so for example you can choose to NOT cache some folders, or to set a sync filter on some folders to cache less data.
This is the only cached configuration that does not affect the size of the delegate’s OST.

Disadvantages

The user is not really a delegate in the formal sense. They act “AS” the manager. Mails come from the manager’s account, not from the delegate on behalf of the manager. Meeting request arrive only in the manager Inbox.
The delegate must either know the manager password, or take extra steps with full mailbox permission to have multi-ex configured correctly.
Setting Jane as a formal delegate in a multi-ex configuration is specifically not supported. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981245/EN-US for details.

At the end of this post is a description and screenshot that shows how to create a multi-ex account and also how to add an additional mailbox.

Option B: Use folder Level Sharing

Advantages

Provides traditional delegate feature set – Mail is sent “on behalf” of the manager, meeting requests arrive only in the delegate inbox, etc.
No need to know the manager password to access folders.
Ability to choose which folders are shared and not shared to control OST size.

Disadvantages

Configuration limitations on folder level control over sync filtering.
All Shared folders are cached to the delegate OST.
Requires some care around full mailbox access.

If you decide that the folder level sharing configuration (option B) is the best scenarios for the super-delegates, then you must understand three different methods of setup for the shared folders and the implications of each method. Specifically, it is vital that you understand the “automapping” feature of Exchange/Outlook and how it fits into the folder sharing methods.

Method 1: Standard Delegate/Folder Sharing – This is the method where you just use the delegate feature from Outlook 2010 to assign a delegate. As part of the delegate setup, Access Control Lists (ACLs) are assigned to the delegate folders, and those folders can then be accessed from the delegate machine through various UI choices (Open Other User’s Folder, Open Shared Calendar, Sharing Requests, etc). This method does NOT imply or require permission for the entire mailbox.

Method 2: Add Additional Mailbox – This “legacy” feature from the advanced tab of the account properties, allows the user to add the mangers mailbox STORE to their profile. This is not the same as the multi-ex feature that was described in Option A above. What is required for this method of sharing is that there is at least “folder visible” permission to the root of the mailbox store.

Method 3: Full Mailbox permissions/automapping – When you assign full mailbox permissions for a user to a manager mailbox, Exchange sends down information in the autodiscover data that tells Outlook to automatically add the shared mailbox to the profile. This creates a very unique and challenging set of facts:

The manager mailbox is automatically added to the delegate user’s profile without the user’s choice or interaction
All of the managers store folders are cached in the user’s OST file
If the manager has an archive mailbox, that store also appears in the user’s folder list AND the managers archive data is also cached to the user’s OST

Because of the current side effects of automapping, we recommend that it not be used for these super-delegate scenarios. Exchange Server 2010 SP2 provides a PowerShell cmdlet to disable the automapping feature and that should be used when configuring shared folder access.

The preferred method of folder sharing will be driven by the access needs to the folder set. If the delegate user needs access to all folders in the manger store, then the recommendation would be to:

Assign appropriate level of permission to the mailbox and folders that are needed.
If “full access” to the mailbox was given in step 1, then disable automapping for the manager’s mailbox.
Use method 2 “Add additional Mailbox” to add the manager’s store to the delegate user’s folder tree.

This configuration would accomplish the following:

Cache the shared folders (required for overall performance)
Retain the traditional “delegate” feature set (send on behalf, meeting request processing)
Allow for common UI control over synchronization filters (which gives some control over the size of the data cached to the delegates OST)
Not incur the unwanted behaviors of the automapping feature

Additional Delegate Recommendations

Choosing between adding Outlook delegates and adding Exchange delegates

Outlook and Exchange define the term “delegate” differently. To Exchange, “delegate” just means someone with the send on behalf right for an account. To Outlook 2010, “delegate” means an entire feature set consisting of the send on behalf right, permissions to the delegate folders, a forward rule to forward meeting requests to the delegate, and various properties and code to keep track of “extras” like how many months of free\busy the manager is publishing, and so forth. Therefore, to the question of how delegates should be added, the recommendation is that if you want the full feature set of an Outlook delegate, you must use Outlook to add delegates. If the goal is to only use the sent on behalf feature, or only have permissions to shared folders, etc., the next recommendation is to use the Exchange tools to add delegates.

Calendar considerations

The only specific issue to be concerned with in terms of other tools, is that both Exchange and Outlook treat permissions on the calendar folder a bit special. There is a special folder on the root the mailbox named “FreeBusy Data” that is used as part of the delegate feature set. The permissions on this folder must be the same as the permissions on the calendar folder. When you use Outlook or Exchange to set permissions on the calendar folder, the permissions are implicitly also applied to this special folder. If you use third party tools that affect permissions and delegates, there is no guarantee that the special Free/Busy Data folder will have the correct permissions applied.

Limits to the number of delegates

There is no purposeful limit on the number of delegates that you can assign to a mailbox. At some lower layer than the feature (the MAPI layer, the Name Service Provider Interface (NSPI) call used to add the send on behalf right, etc.), you will likely eventually hit some limit that will prevent adding the nth delegate, but that number is beyond the recommended practical limit.

The Outlook Product Team historically has tested four (4) delegates as the recommended maximum for a mailbox. This recommendation is based more on the practical usability for the calendar than any performance or size limitations. Having more than four delegates creates potentially complex scenarios especially in today’s world of mobile devices, OWA, Outlook add-ins, etc. This complexity makes managing the calendar untenable. We also recommend that you follow the published best practices for working with meeting requests. For example, always respond to a meeting request, configure so that only delegates receive a full copy of the meeting request and so on.

Following IHV and ISV best practices

Optionally, you should consider including best practices and documentation from all third party calendar vendors in your environment. For example, if you use Android, Apple, or RIM Blackberry devices, then you should maintain current issues list and troubleshooting methodologies from those vendors.

Outlook 2010 OST sizing recommendations for delegates working with on-premises or Office 365 mailboxes

OST and item size recommendations for a delegate working with Exchange on-premises or Office 365 mailboxes must be considered from several points of view in Office 365 scenarios. OST synchronization can take longer from the cloud than from an on-premises Exchange mailbox. For a better experience, we recommend smaller data sizes for scenarios where the delegated mailbox is on Office365.

Consider these recommendations for a super-delegate:

Exchange on-premises mailbox recommendations for Outlook 2010 performance (maximums)
OST Size: 25 GB
General Folder Item Count: 50,000
Calendar Item Count: 5000

Office 365 mailbox recommendations for Outlook 2010 performance (maximums)
OST Size: 5 GB
General Folder Item Count: 20,000
Calendar Item Count: 5000

Since there are several difficulties in predicting variables in the performance equation (speed of hard drives, usage patterns, add-ins, etc.), our sizing recommendations divide the values into three groups. The first group is the “you should almost never have any OST related performance issues” and that value is 5GB. The second group is the “there should be some level of performance issues, but they are considered manageable by users”. This value is 5-25 GB. Finally the third group is the “you will likely see enough performance impact to affect the user experience”. This value is 25 GB.

From the Outlook point of view, the existing sizing recommendations generally apply equally to Office 365 accounts. The Outlook recommendations are for performance of the OST file format as it relates to “offline” operations. In other words, performance that you get when moving items between local folders, creating views for folders with significant number of items, etc. This recommendation is <25GB for the OST size, 5000 items for a calendar folder, and 20,000 items for non-calendar folders. Calendar folders have specific overhead (calculating recurrence patterns) that create the need for smaller folder sizes. Again, this is the recommendation for performance that is typically seen as manageable by users, not the value that ensures high performance.

Office 365 OST size recommendations also aim at having the network performance meet a suitable level. If you have a large OST, the initial time to sync will be long. For example, if you have operations such as Microsoft Records Management changes that require some level of syncing of all items, then the resulting performance and network usage is typically not suitable when the data size is in the 25GB range. Furthermore, there are some factors involved in shared folder scenarios, where data has to be retrieved from the server. So there is some level of potential extra performance hit in these shared folder scenarios. For that reason, the Office 365 sizing recommendations are typically better recommendations when shared folders are in use. And finally, the Office 365 recommendation of 5GB is to ensure high performance in general for the OST operations, independent of the network.

Therefore, depending on your GOAL for OST performance, the sizing recommendations might be different. The Outlook sizing recommendations will be the maximum recommended for general client side performance. But the Office365 recommendations for a smaller OST would provide mitigation against network-related performance issues and provide consistently better performance.
For the super-delegate setups on Office 365, if the choice is made to use shared folders instead of the multi-ex account setup, the recommendations would be:
OST Size: Some level between 5GB and 25 GB depending on the desired performance
Calendar Item Counts: 5000
General Folder Item Counts: 20000

These sizing levels will ensure that the OST itself has generally good performance, the calendar folder has mitigation against potential lag when working with the calendar data, and general folders, including shared folders that have an item count that performs adequately in most usage scenarios. It should be noted that Outlook 2010 is a versatile, feature rich client, and there are always possible usage patterns or workflows that will affect these recommendations. For example, Outlook provides a feature (available from the folder properties dialog) to clear all the offline data for the folder from your OST. If part of your workflow is to clear offline items regularly from a folder, then performance will sufferwhen that folder is synchronized down in the future. If you use filtered or complex view definitions that Outlook must apply to folder data, then you may see performance lags during those operations. These recommendations are aimed at the best “typical” usage patterns for the super-delegate.

For more information, see:

Recommendations for proactive monitoring

Our best client side monitoring tool is the Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool (OCAT). OCAT is based on the same technology as the Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer. It provides both a friendly UI that users can take advantage of to check client health and also a command line version that IT administrators can script to run health checks and collect the resulting reports. The reference material below has a detailed word document with the feature set, how to use it from the IT administrator point of view, and additional information.

Server side, you can use the feature set of PowerShell scripts and commands to retrieve information about mailbox and folder sizes.

For more information, see:

Recommendations for training super delegates

Microsoft provides several reference documents on “best practices” for delegate scenarios. These guides range from beginner level tasks to intermediate handing of the delegate feature. The Microsoft Premier Field Engineering teams also deliver calendar workshops proactively and reactively. Workshops include topics related to troubleshooting calendar problems and best practice recommendations.

Here are some additional training and troubleshooting resources:

Recommendations for the maximum number of rules for Outlook super-delegate configuration

The maximum number of rules for Exchange is limited by a storage allocation for the “property” that stores all the rules. Historically that property was limited to 32K. A typical rule takes between 600-800 bytes of data to store. So you would “run out of room” between 40 and 50 rules. In Exchange 2010, you can specify a value larger than 32K for the rules storage. For Exchange Online accounts, you can set that value to as high as 64K. This would allow for close to 100 rules. The recommended maximum number of rules would be determined by the user’s ability to manage the rule set. Especially in scenarios where several rules could affect the same message and the user has to deal with all the logic involved in triggering the rules.

For more information, see Increasing the Rules Limit for Exchange Online.

General recommendations

The Outlook and Exchange team continuously work together to improve the Exchange Online experience. Not only are specific bugs identified and fixed during our “cumulative update” cycle, but other code changes just to improve the stability and performance are included in the cumulative updates. For this reason, our recommendation is to always test and use the latest available cumulative updates when working on Outlook client problems. The mandatory client level for Outlook is to have an Outlook build that is within 1 year of the current date. So for example using October 2012 as the current date, it is mandatory to have the October 2011 CU applied to Outlook when using Exchange Online.

A last factor to consider in terms of performance and stability is to understand the importance of the calendar ecosystem. If a variety of clients are in use (Outlook, OWA, Windows Phone, IPhone, Blackberry), there is a risk to calendar stability, and each of those areas needs attention. Likewise, if you have add-ins for Outlook that extend the calendar feature set, then you have another potential factor in keeping the calendar running smoothly. None of these are necessarily the cause of a problem, but they do introduce complexity and the requirement for teams to work together to understand and troubleshoot problems.

The latest updates for Outlook can always be found at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ee748587.aspx.

Definition of multi-ex and Add Additional Mailbox

Multi-ex is the common name for the scenario where you add a complete SECOND account to the Outlook profile. You can add a second account to an Outlook 2010 profile by going to Outlook File, Account Settings and selecting New.

To add an additional mailbox, go to Outlook Account Settings and select the Change button, More Settings and then select the Advanced tab for the EXISTING Exchange account.

October 2012 Cumulative Updates for Office and related products are now available

DarrylMo — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:06:41 GMT

You can now get the October 2012 Cumulative Updates (CUs) packages for Office 2010, and the 2007 Office system. The CUs also include Office servers and SharePoint products. In these knowledge base articles, you’ll find links for the individual update packages and their descriptions.

In addition, there are overall packages available for the following products:

Office 2010

Office 2007

For links to all the Office CUs, Public Updates (PUs), and Service Packs, see the Update Center for Microsoft Office, Office Servers, and Related Products.

August 2012 Cumulative Update for Office is now available

DarrylMo — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 05:00:00 GMT

You can now get the August 2012 Cumulative Updates (CUs) packages for Office 2010, the 2007 Office system, and Project Server 2010 (released September 14, 2012). The CUs also include Office servers and SharePoint products. In these overall knowledge base articles, you’ll find links for the individual update packages and their descriptions.,

For links to all the Office CUs, Public Updates (PUs), and Service Packs, see the Update Center for Microsoft Office, Office Servers, and Related Products.

System requirements for Office 2013 Preview

LeAnn A — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 15:15:00 GMT

You are itching to give the new Office a spin and we don’t blame you! It’s everything you’ve grown fond of plus many cool new features all rolled up in a beautiful package of apps that play so well together. Before you jump in, take a minute to make sure your system will be able to showcase everything you want to preview. The system requirements are worth reviewing.

Standard system requirements for Office 2013 Preview are:

Component	Requirement
Computer and Processor	1 gigahertz or faster x86- or x64-bit processor with SSE2 instruction set
Memory (RAM)	1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32 bit); 2 gigabytes (GB) RAM (64 bit)
Hard disk	3.0 gigabytes (GB) available
Display	Graphics hardware acceleration requires a DirectX10 graphics card and 1024 x 576 resolution
Operating System	Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012
Browser	Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, 9, or 10; Mozilla Firefox 10.x or a later version; Apple Safari 5; or Google Chrome 17.x
.NET version	3.5, 4.0, or 4.5
Multi-touch	A touch-enabled device is required for any multi-touch functionality. However, all features and functionality are always available by using a keyboard, mouse, or other standard or accessible input device. Note that new touch features are optimized for use with Windows 8.

Some Office 2013 Preview programs have additional requirements. Take a look at the System requirements for Office 2013 Preview for details about additional requirements for:

· Access 2013 Preview
· Excel 2013 Preview
· InfoPath 2013 Preview
· Lync 2013 Preview
· Lync Server 2013 Preview
· The new Office Telemetry Dashboard
· OneNote 2013 Preview
· Outlook 2013 Preview
· Project Professional 2013 Preview
· Word 2013 Preview

Okay, now you can download Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus Preview!

For a peek at what others are saying about the new Office, check out the forum.

Hotfix in the August 2011 Cumulative Update fixes possible Outlook 2010 SP1 issues

DarrylMo — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 16:29:00 GMT

If you’ve installed Office 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and are experiencing either of the following issues with Outlook 2010 SP1:

Reminders display in Outlook Web App (OWA), but do not display in Outlook 2010 SP1.
Outlook 2010 SP1 Sent email messages for which you’ve set Follow Up don’t show that the Follow Up is set and don’t display the Follow Up message icon.

You should install the Outlook 2010 hotfix package. It’s part of the Office 2010 Cumulative Update (CU) for August 2011.

For more information about the latest Office products updates, see the Update Center for Microsoft Office, Office Servers, and Related Products.

Office Communicator 2005 is not supported with Outlook 2010

Catherine Watson — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:00:00 GMT

Hi there,

We've heard that there has been some questions on which versions of Microsoft Office Communicator are supported with Outlook 2010. The supported versions are Office Communicator 2007 and later versions (including OC 2007 R2 and Lync 2010). Office Communicator 2005 is not supported with Outlook 2010. This means that there is no integration between Office Communicator 2005 and Outlook 2010. You can run them on the same computer as stand-alone applications but you won’t get any of the integration benefits…like presence awareness on contacts, the ability to start an instant message from Outlook, and so on. If you have Office Communicator 2005 in your environment and are planning to deploy Outlook 2010, then consider migrating to Lync 2010.

What is Office Communicator? Office Communicator is the Microsoft Office Communications Server client application for real-time communication. It provides rich presence awareness, software-powered voice capabilities, instant messaging (IM), multi-party audio, video and desktop sharing, and integration with Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2010 (with OCS 2007 and later versions).   For more information about OCS 2007, see Microsoft Office Communications Server on TechNet.

What is Lync 2010? Lync 2010 is the next generation of Office Communicator.   If you haven't already, check out the product info and see it in action: The Next Generational of Unified Communications - Microsoft Lync Server 2010.

Hope that helps!

Need quick access to message headers in Outlook 2010?

Catherine Watson — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:38:00 GMT

Are you wondering how to quickly access email message header information in Outlook 2010? Our friends at the Exchange Team Blog just published a blog post covering this topic. Message headers are not something most of us would need to look at but they are helpful to Exchange admins for troubleshooting email issues.

The Exchange Team's Blog post explains how to add the "Message Options" button to the Quick Access Toolbar. The Quick Access Toolbar is located above the ribbon on the very top left of the main Outlook window:

When you want to look at an email's message header information, you can then select the message and click the "Message Options" button on the Quick Access Toolbar. The Properties window will open.

For the step by step on how to add “Message Options” to the Quick Access Toolbar, see the post Hey Outlook 2010, where are my message headers?

If there are other commands you want easier access to, you can also add them to the Quick Access Toolbar. For more information, see Customize the Quick Access Toolbar. For more information about customizing the ribbon, the Quick Access Toolbar, and context menus in Office 2010, see the IT Pro topic Customize the Office user interface in Office 2010.

And on the subject of “quick” features, one of my favorite tools to quickly manage my email is Quick Steps. With one button you can apply multiple actions at once to e-mail messages. You can customize the existing Quick Steps or customize your own. For more information, see Automate common or repetitive tasks with Quick Steps.

Cheers!

Cat

Personal Archive with Outlook 2007 + Exchange 2010

Catherine Watson — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 16:05:00 GMT

As you may have heard/read, Exchange 2010 Personal Archive support is now available in Outlook 2007 as part of the Office 2007 Cumulative Update for February 2011. The Microsoft Exchange Team Blog post Yes Virginia, there is Exchange 2010 archive support in Outlook 2007 covers how Personal Archive works in Outlook 2007. It is also detailed in the updated Exchange Help article Understanding Personal Archives.

What is Personal Archive?

Personal Archive is a feature available with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Messaging Records Management (MRM). It can eliminate the need for Personal Folder files (.pst). By using Personal Archive in Exchange Server 2010, the e-mail archive folders are stored online so that users can access the archived files by using Microsoft Outlook Web App or from a secondary computer by using Outlook 2010 or, now, Outlook 2007. By using any of these client applications, users can view an archive mailbox and move or copy messages between their primary mailboxes and the archive.

You’ll want to check out the Exchange team’s blog post and article Understanding Personal Archives to see how the functionality differs between Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010. Of note, in Outlook 2007, you cannot search across the primary and archive mailboxes. Also, in Outlook 2007, a user cannot use personal tags (also known as archive policies) to move items to the archive mailbox. However, default archive policies will continue to be applied. Users can use Outlook Web App to see or apply archive policies.

Happy archiving with Exchange Server 2010!

- Cat

Important update about Exchange 2010 Personal Archives support in Outlook 2007

Catherine Watson — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 20:39:24 GMT

In case you haven’t seen the Exchange Team’s Blog post on this topic...we've found an issue in Exchange 2010 Personal Archives support for Outlook 2007 in the December 2010 Cumulative Update for Office 2007, which may result in users being unable to access their archive mailbox.

The fix will be available with the February 2011 Cumulative Update for Office 2007, which will be available later this month. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Changes to hotfixes in the December 2010 Cumulative Update for Office 2010

DarrylMo — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:08:36 GMT

The December 2010 Cumulative Update originally released December 14, 2010 and shown on the Office Update Center page now contains changes to the following hotfix packages. These changes are dated December 31, 2010:

Note: Within the December 2010 Cumulative Update KB article, hotfix packages are listed in tables by Office product group. The hotfix packages are designed for you to download them individually and to apply them only if you are experiencing the issue mentioned in the particular hotfix.

For the latest on updates to Office, Office servers, and related products, see the Office Update Center.

New Resource Center for Outlook 2010

Catherine Watson — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:00:00 GMT

Are you an IT Professional wondering what key topics you should review for your Outlook 2010 deployment? Check out the new Outlook 2010 Resource Center (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/office/gg513879.aspx). It includes a collection of the popular Outlook 2010 topics like changes between the versions, system requirements, add-in compatibility considerations, deployment planning and configuration topics, training resources for your end users and more.

Send me feedback! Not finding something you're looking for? Let me know.

More application specific Resource Centers are coming soon. You can find all the available application IT Pro Resource Centers by clicking Applications in the top grey bar on the TechNet Microsoft Office 2010 home page (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ee263913).

Enjoy!

Cat

Issues with the recent update for Outlook 2007

Catherine Watson — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 20:43:00 GMT

On Tuesday, December 14, we released an update (KB2412171) for Microsoft Outlook 2007. We have discovered several issues with the update and want to inform you about problems you might encounter and what corrective steps we recommend. As of December 16, this Outlook 2007 update has been removed from Microsoft Update.

This Outlook 2007 update was distributed via Microsoft Update. Many of you receive updates automatically and if you installed the update between Tuesday, December 14, and Thursday, December 16, it is likely that you are affected.

Please read the Microsoft Outlook Product Team's blog post for the details on the issues identified and the corrective steps to take.

See what's new on our TechNet site at www.officeitpro.com

Jill_M [MSFT] — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 17:15:00 GMT

Hello everyone!
The writers here on the Office Resource Kit are always on the lookout for new content to feature on our TechNet pages on www.officeitpro.com. Here's what we've been up to the past couple weeks. We'd love to hear from you about these changes!

"Zoom in" on model posters

Want to see the details of a model poster without downloading it? Check out our new "Zoom in" functionality for our model posters. One example is the 64-bit considerations poster on our Compatibility page. Click Zoom in to view a high-resolution image of the poster that you can click and drag within your browser to view various parts of the image. We'll be adding "zoom in" links to the rest of our model posters this week. The posters will of course be available in their downloadable format as well.

Here's a list of zoomed-in posters for reference:

64-Bit Client Installation of Office 2010 http://zoom.it/ab8U#full
Deploy language packs for Office 2010 http://zoom.it/f7oh#full
Deployment options for Office 2010 http://zoom.it/HZUK#full
Application virtualization for the mobile user http://zoom.it/Gmks#full
Application virtualization delivery methods http://zoom.it/Ilh3#full
Virtualization architecture overview (Office 2010) http://zoom.it/Pkg0#full
Office 2010 volume activation http://zoom.it/SaTk#full

Access the latest Access 2010 Resources

Thank you to everyone who posted comments on our (Almost) everything you ever wanted to know about Access 2010 blog post. While we collect your feedback and start planning for new content, we've assembled some existing IT Pro resources for Access 2010 in a Access 2010 Resource Center on TechNet. What do you think of this format? Would you like to see similar pages for other Office 2010 applications like Outlook, Excel, etc.?

See the latest Office KBs and top solutions (and have them delivered to your inbox)

We've implemented two new RSS feeds for the most recent KBs and top solutions for Office suites. You can view these feeds from our Manage and Support pages as you're browsing through Office TechNet content, or you can subscribe to the feed in Outlook.

Tech Ed 2010 session videos are live

Jill_M [MSFT] — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:18:00 GMT

Couldn’t make it to Tech Ed this year? Here is your chance to watch the session videos online. You can view the full list of videos, including the keynotes, on the TechEd Online site. The sessions listed below are tailored for Office IT Pros.

· Microsoft Office 2010: Under the Hood Investments for Hardware and Performance [OSP06-INT]

Learn how Office 2010 was designed to take advantage of advanced graphics chips, limited bandwidth environments, multicore processors, 64-bit chips, netbooks and more, while also optimizing performance and system requirements for existing hardware.

· Microsoft Visio 2010: The IT Pro Love Story Continues [OSP210]

Learn how Visio 2010 will revolutionize the way IT pros work; how it will save valuable time and money with the enhancements made to the product. The is the best Visio release in 10 years. Learn how it will impact infrastructure specialists, application developers, and IT managers. Learn how it works together with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.

· Advances in Microsoft Office Client Security: Keeping Enterprise Data Safe [OSP201]

Attackers are increasingly targeting applications to get at sensitive corporate data, and Office is no exception. It's not just about macro viruses anymore – any Office file can be used in an attack, and firewall-based protections aren't always enough. Office 2010 introduces a best-in-class suite of layered defenses to help prevent the spread of malware via Office documents. This session covers what you need to know about Office File Validation, Protected View and other protective technologies introduced in Microsoft Office 2010 and how they can keep your users safe without getting in the way. We also cover new ways that Office helps enterprises protect sensitive data while enabling collaboration with enhancements to our password protection, digital signature and rights management capabilities.

· Microsoft Access 2010 and IT: The War Is Over [OSP05-INT]

Access enables end-users in business units to develop applications quickly at low cost. This agility is valued by large organizations around the world. However, some of these same organizations struggle with managing the myriad of Access databases in use. This session covers the new tools and techniques now available to keep IT firmly in control. The best of both worlds is possible: you can satisfy the need for agile development from your business units and still rest assured that the data is secured, backed up, and managed appropriately.

· Key Aspects of Volume Activation for Microsoft Office 2010 [OSP04-INT]

In this session we discuss the new MAK and KMS volume activation methodology for Office 2010, including overview, how-to, and demos.

· Microsoft Office 2010 Application Compatibility [OSP07-INT]

With every new version of the Office Suite released, Microsoft’s customers are facing the multifaceted challenge of the newly released version of Office deployment. One of the biggest issues related to deployment is an inability for IT professionals to assess and to know exactly what problems the organization will have, once the new Office is deployed. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt sometimes are a larger issue than the real incompatibility itself. It is also difficult today for developers to pinpoint portions of the code that will not function properly once the application is used with Office 2010. The Office 2010 Application Compatibility program is designed to help customers and partners to assess the environment pre-deployment of Office 2010 and to help identify compatibility issues within their applications code. Come to this session to learn about new tools to help assess the Office environment and identify potential issues in documents and code that may become a migration barrier as you decide to migrate to Office 2010.

· Understanding and Deploying the Office Web Apps [OSP216]

Office Web Apps are new to Microsoft Office 2010 and will allow users to work with files from more places and on more devices by providing browser-based viewing and lightweight editing of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote files. Learn how to deploy and configure the Web applications within your organization and what the viewing, sharing, creating, and editing documents experience is like.

· Microsoft Office 2010 for IT Professionals [OSP208]

Let's talk about what's new in Office 2010, specifically about implications for IT pros. Topics include security improvements, hardware and performance enhancements, Web Apps principles and deployment, App-V and Office, improvements to application compatibility testing, tips/tools to get your end users prepared, and much more. This session serves as a great intro/overview before diving into each topic in more depth in separate Tech·Ed sessions.

· Microsoft Outlook and Exchange 2010: Better Together Overview [OSP314]

In this session, Outlook Program Manager Andrew Sullivan reviews the various integration points between Outlook and Exchange 2010, highlighting core scenarios for end users and valuable integration points for IT pros and anyone managing a messaging infrastructure. This session covers Outlook and Exchange in great detail -- no question is off limits!

Outlook Hotmail Connector available for Outlook 2010

PattyN_ — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:49:00 GMT

If you have been using Outlook Hotmail Connector to access your Windows Live Hotmail or Microsoft Office Live Mail accounts within Outlook 2007 or 2003, Outlook Connector is now available for Microsoft Office Outlook 2010 32-bit and 64-bit.

With Outlook Hotmail Connector you can use your Live Hotmail accounts within Outlook to:

Read and send your Office Live Mail/Windows Live Hotmail e-mail messages.
Manage your contacts in Windows Live Hotmail.
Use advanced options for blocking junk e-mail messages.
Manage multiple e-mail accounts in one place.
Manage, and synchronize multiple calendars, including shared calendars to Windows Live Calendar from Outlook.

For system requirements and download information, see the download pages:

How to import Outlook Data Files (.pst) – the files formally known as Personal Folder Files (.PST)

Catherine Watson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:11:00 GMT

If you upgrade from Outlook 2007 to Outlook 2010, your .pst files will auto-magically be imported into your Outlook profile. You don’t need to do anything (beyond upgrading) to get them there.

If you want to do a clean install where you uninstall Outlook and then install Outlook 2010, you may need to manually import your .pst files into your profile. As with Outlook 2007, it’s easy to do in Outlook 2010 but the commands to do it are in a different spot.

Here is one way to do it in Outlook 2010 Beta:

1. In Outlook 2010, click the File tab.

2. Click Open and then click Open Outlook Data File.

3. Navigate to the .pst file to import and then click Ok.

You’re done!

If you or your organization isn’t a fan of .pst files, check out the Personal Archive feature with Exchange Server 2010 and Outlook 2010. As with .pst files, the Personal Archive feature does not affect user’s primary mailbox size. The difference is that the e-mail archive folders are stored on the Exchange server and can only be accessed while the user is connected to the internet. Users can access their Personal Archive just like a .pst file in Outlook 2010. Because archived email is stored on the Exchange server users can access it from OWA as well. For more information about the Personal Archive in Exchange 2010, see Understanding Personal Archive (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=178303).

You can also disable .pst files in your organization. In Planning for Messaging Records Management 2010 Help (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=178295), see the sections “Limiting Access to PST Files” and “Configure user's systems to prevent moving or copying Exchange mailbox data to PST files”.

And while I’m on the Exchange Server 2010 tangent, you should definitely check out the new features available if you haven’t already. See Microsoft Exchange 2010 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=163579) and What's New in Exchange Server 2010 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkId=164425).

Happy Office 2010 Beta evaluating!

Security updates for October 2009

PattyN_ — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:55:00 GMT

On Tuesday, October 13th, 2009, Microsoft released security updates for Microsoft Office products to address 11 security vulnerabilities in two security bulletins. The security updates apply to the following Office products:

· Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003, and the 2007 Microsoft Office system. The security updates also apply to Microsoft Office Outlook 2002, Outlook 2003, and Outlook 2007; and Microsoft Office Visio Viewer 2007, as described in security bulletin MS09-060, "Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Active Template Library (ATL) ActiveX Controls for Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution."

For information about known issues that customers may experience when installing this security update and for information about recommended solutions for these issues, see Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 973965, “MS09-060: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Active Template Library (ATL) ActiveX Controls for Microsoft Office could allow remote code execution.”

· Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and Microsoft Visio 2002, as described in security bulletin MS09-062, “Vulnerabilities in GDI+ Could Allow Remote Code Execution.”

For information about known issues that customers may experience when installing this security update and for information about recommended solutions for these issues, see Knowledge Base Article 957488, “MS09-062: Vulnerabilities in GDI+ could allow remote code execution.”

For complete details, see the following summaries:

· Microsoft Security Updates for October 2009 for home users

· Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for October 2009 for IT professionals.

As described in security bulletin MS09-060, Microsoft recommends that all users of Microsoft Visio Viewer 2002 and Visio Viewer 2003 upgrade to the latest version of Visio Viewer 2007 to address this security vulnerability. Users who are unable to upgrade should apply the update from MS09-034, “Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (972260).” This Internet Explorer update mitigates the attack vector for affected Visio Viewer platforms. Users may also install the cumulative security update for Internet Explorer. After you install MS09-060, you will need to upgrade to Visio Viewer 2007 and install the update described in this article to continue using Visio Viewer.

Note:

· The Security Updates for Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003 and the 2007 Office system described in MS09-060 do not fix a security vulnerability. The updates resolve a problem that occurs after you install the security updates for Microsoft Office Outlook 2002, Outlook 2003, or Outlook 2007 that are described in security bulletin MS09-060. The security updates for Outlook modify the CLSID (class identifier) of the Outlook View Control. This causes certain solutions based on Forms 2.0 that use the Outlook View Control to stop working, such as Business Contact Manager. The Security Updates for Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003, and the 2007 Office system update Forms 2.0 to work properly after the security updates to Outlook are installed.

· PowerPoint Viewer 2003 has left support as of October 8th, 2009. To continue receiving updates, please install PowerPoint Viewer 2007.

Microsoft Outlook Junk Email Filter updates

Microsoft also released two updates to the Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 Junk Email Filter. These updates provide a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail.

For the latest information about Office updates, see the Office Sustained Engineering blog.

Updates for Outlook Junk E-mail Filters September 2009

PattyN_ — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:19:00 GMT

On September 2nd, 2009, Microsoft released updates to the Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Junk E-mail Filters. The updates provide the Junk E-mail Filter in Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 with a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail.

Update for Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter (KB973515) (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=63BF0D12-165B-4FEE-AC96-9BAD91DDB264&displaylang=en)

Update for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Junk Email Filter (KB973514) (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1586DC82-3422-4801-874B-E6C38868945C&displaylang=en)

No Office security updates were released for September.

Office 2007 installed on retail computers is usually a trial version

Andrea Bichsel - MSFT — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:35:00 GMT

From time to time, we receive comments on our articles asking a variant of the question, “Where is my product key?” These comments are typically from retail customers whose trial version of Office 2007 has expired and is now asking them for a product key to continue using it. Many customers try the product key included on the bottom of their computer, only to find out that it’s the product key for the operating system, not for Office 2007.

Retail customers should keep in mind that when you buy a computer from a department or online store, you are most likely receiving a trial version of Office 2007, not the full retail version. If you aren’t sure, please ask your sales representative! (Retail computers usually have a full, licensed version of the operating system, however.)

Also keep in mind that trial versions of Office 2007 do not install Outlook 2007.

If you have a trial version of Office 2007 that has expired, you have the option to purchase the full, licensed software from the Microsoft Web site, Web sites of authorized vendors, or from any authorized retail store. You can purchase the software on CD or as a download.

For more information about the trial versions of Office that are eligible for conversion to the full, licensed version and for instructions on activating a full, licensed version of Office 2007, see the KB article How to convert a trial version of a 2007 Office suite or program to a full retail perpetual license version.

Tips for using the Outlook 2007 Security Hash Generator Tool

Catherine Watson — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:30:00 GMT

The Outlook 2007 Security Hash Generator Tool is used to generate a hash value to identify your Outlook COM add-in for Group Policy. If you are customizing security settings by using Group Policy, you’d need to enter the add-in name and hash value to...(read more)

Part 2: Customize the 2007 Office system to work with a non-Microsoft e-mail application

Catherine Watson — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:55:00 GMT

Update April 6th: The full article is finally available on TechNet - Customize the 2007 Office system to work with a non-Microsoft e-mail application . >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>...(read more)

Customize the 2007 Office system to work with a non-Microsoft e-mail application

Catherine Watson — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:33:00 GMT

On the off chance that you are considering deploying the 2007 Microsoft Office system to work with a non-Microsoft e-mail application, you’ll want to check out a brand new article that will (hopefully) be published the end of next week: Customize the...(read more)

Customize these Office 2007 training presentations for your users

Andrea Bichsel - MSFT — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:12:00 GMT

You can customize and use each of these presentation templates to provide in-house training to your users. Each presentation contains detailed instructions for performing the task, including screenshots and short quizzes. Instructions on how to use the...(read more)

Cool add-ins for Office 2007

Andrea Bichsel - MSFT — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:16:00 GMT

I compiled a list of add-ins for Office 2007 that you might find useful. The ones that affect two or more products appear first, then they appear (roughly) alphabetically by product. Enjoy! Add-in Description 2007...(read more)

New ORK article: Automatically configure Office Outlook 2007 user accounts

Andrea Bichsel - MSFT — Wed, 21 May 2008 19:29:00 GMT

You can find our new ORK article here: Automatically configure Office Outlook 2007 user accounts . Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 includes the ability to automatically configure user accounts. Office Outlook 2007 uses one of two discovery mechanisms to...(read more)