OL97: Summary of Changes in Outlook Version 8.04 (177412)

MORE INFORMATION

Office 97 SR-2 must be installed over Office 97 SR-1, that included Outlook 8.02. Outlook 8.04 is a superset of version 8.02 and also a superset of version 8.03 shipped with Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.5. Since Outlook 8.04 is a superset of version 8.03, all changes and improvements included in the 8.03 release are also available in version 8.04. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: In addition to the improvements that were first available in Outlook 8.03, there are several improvements and changes specific to version 8.04.

User Interface Improvements

Time Zone User Interface Improvement

In previous versions of Outlook, if you do not have permission to change the time zone on the computer, Outlook appears to let you make a change in the Calendar options, but in fact does not make any change. This is fixed in Outlook 8.04. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

New "Changed By" Field

A new field, "Changed By" has been added to the list of fields that can be viewed for Outlook items. This field is available in the All Mail Fields category in the Field Chooser, and can be added to any Outlook view. This field contains the name of the person who last modified the item.

Resource Deletion Improvement

In previous versions of Outlook, when you removed a resource from a meeting invitation, the resource name still appeared in the location text of the meeting. Outlook 8.04 now removes the resource from the location text of the meeting if you remove the resource.

Advanced Find Fix

In previous versions of Outlook, if you use the Advanced tab of the Find dialog box to search for items, a page fault occurred if you searched for an invalid date range. For example, if you build a query to search for items created before April 31, 1997, you receive a page fault (April has only 30 days). Outlook 8.04 corrects this problem.

Schedule+ Interoperability Improvements

There are six specific changes in the Outlook 8.04 release related to interoperability with Schedule+.

Improved Importing of Schedule+ Calendar Data

Previous versions of Outlook used an inefficient algorithm for importing server-based Schedule+ calendars if the user checked for duplicate entries. Outlook 8.04 includes import files that use a more efficient algorithm and will speed up the import and use of imported Schedule+ calendar data. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Alert When Importing During Heavy Network Traffic

In versions of Outlook previous to 8.04, in rare circumstances when network traffic is very heavy, the Schedule+ import will fail with an Invalid Page Fault error in file Olappt.fae. The import files included with Outlook 8.04 add a fix to alert the user that the network is busy and to retry the import at a later time.

Schedule+ Meeting Request Window Enlarged

Outlook 8.04 includes a cosmetic fix to the way that meeting requests are opened when using the "Use Schedule+ as primary calendar" option. Previous versions of Outlook would open a Schedule+ meeting request in a window that was too small. Outlook 8.04 opens the message in a larger window that allows all of the meeting information to be seen without resizing the form. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

European Time Zones Conversion Improved

The Schedule+ files that ship with Outlook 8.04 fix a problem for Schedule+ users who use European Time Zones. Appointments in various European Time Zones appeared one hour off. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Imported Time Zones Correctly Adjusted

Outlook 8.04 now correctly adjusts the time zones for appointments that are imported from an .SCD file that was created in a different time zone. For example, an appointment created for 11:00 A.M. EST in the Schedule+ file will import as 8:00 A.M. on a user's computer whose current time zone is PST.

Temp Folder for Imported Files Improved

In previous versions of Outlook, if you import a Schedule+ .SCD file, temporary files are created in the System folder, or System32 for Microsoft Windows NT users, during the import process. If the folder is locked, the import fails. Outlook 8.04 creates these temporary files in a location determined by:

• The AppData path in the Registry key: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\AppData
• If the AppData path is not available, the path specified in the TEMP environment variable is used.
• If neither of the two above exist, the files are created in the System folder.

Forms and Programming Improvements

Custom Appointment Form Improvement

In Outlook 8.04, a registered custom appointment form does not trigger the "enable/disable" macro warning. Previous versions of Outlook always presented the macro warning, even if the custom form was registered properly.

Improved Right-Click Form Behavior

Outlook 8.04 improves handling of right-click operations that affect open forms. In previous versions of Outlook, if an item based on a custom form with an attachment was open when you right-clicked the item from a table view, like the Inbox, the open item closed. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Form Posting Improvement

Outlook 8.04 includes a change that makes posting items from a Visual Basic program to an Outlook folder more efficient. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

New Interface for Extensions

Outlook 8.04 adds a new programming interface that can be used by client extension developers. The new interface allows hooking of the OnOpen, OnOpenComplete, OnClose and OnCloseComplete actions.

Extension Notification Improvements

Outlook 8.04 adds four improvements to the way that application event notifications are passed to client extensions.

1. Printing events are now successfully passed to client extensions. Previous versions of Outlook did not notify a client extension when a print command was selected. With version 8.04, client extension developers can write extensions that react to a user clicking a Print command.
2. Outlook 8.04 now passes accelerator key choices for Copy/Paste to extensions, so a client extension can react to the user pressing CTRL+C and CTRL+V.
3. 8.04 does not send an extra COPY notification to extensions when the PASTE command is clicked. Previous versions of Outlook were not consistent in respect to passing the COPY command to extensions. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   183156 BUG: Outlook 8.03 Gives Extra Copy Notification to Extensions

4. Outlook 8.04 now passes Drag events to client extensions successfully so client extensions can react to drag events.

Miscellaneous Improvements

cc:Mail Import Improvement

Previous versions of Outlook, when using the cc:Mail service, would not successfully import cc:Mail messages larger than 20 kilobytes in the body of the message. The cc:Mail service included with Outlook 8.04 allows the import to work properly.

Outlook Address Book Improvement

Outlook 8.04 includes the version of the Outlook Address Book that allows Contacts to appear in the address book in either Last name, First name format, or First name, Last name. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Address Book Crash Fix

In rare circumstances after you upgrade to Office 97 SR-1, when you click the Address Book button, an Invalid Page Fault occurs in Msvcrt.dll. This occurs with certain combinations of Msmail.ini and Shared.ini files that are used for Microsoft Mail extension interoperability. The setup files for Outlook 8.04 correct this problem.

New SMTP Address Syntax

Outlook 8.04 supports an additional syntax for entering SMTP addresses. You can now enter names in the form: Outlook 8.04 interprets the address as johndoe@email.com and delivers the message appropriately. Additionally, Outlook 8.04 does not try to "clean up" and remove white spaces from addresses entered using this format when the automatic name checking feature is enabled.

Rules Wizard Setup Improvement

The version of the Rules Wizard that ships with Outlook 8.04 supports a "quiet" setup mode using the /q command line switch. Previous versions of the Rules Wizard Setup did not fully support this command line switch. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: The version of the Rules Wizard that includes this fix is available independent of Outlook 8.04 and is located at:

Tab Stop Handling Improvement

Previous versions of Outlook did not retain tab stop settings on a per- message basis, If "columns" were created in a message using tab settings of .5 inches using WordMail, for example, and then were read on a computer that did not use WordMail, the message did not appear columnar. This is corrected in Outlook 8.04.

New Message Marking Option

In Outlook 8.04, you can now turn off the "marking" of messages that you reply to or forward. In previous versions of Outlook, if you reply to or forward a message, the original message is marked, and text such as "You replied to this message on 01/01/1997 at 3:30 PM" is added to the information area of the original message. This marking of the original messages marks the item as changed, and therefore is included in any OST synchronizations. If the original message is a large item, then synchronization performance suffers due to having to synchronize all the marked items. In Outlook 8.04, setting the following registry key to 1 will turn off the marking of messages that are replied to or forwarded.

   HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Outlook\Options\Mail\RFNoTrack
				

Attachment Filename Improvement

Outlook 8.04 has improved internal handling of 8.3 filenames for attachments. Items with attachments that were created in previous versions of Outlook could not be opened by the Exchange client or Outlook for Windows 3.1x. Outlook 8.04 corrects this problem.

Phone Dialer Improvement

Outlook 8.04 now supports the TAPI command for Suspend Dialing, also referred to as the "?" property. Using the "?" TAPI command in previous versions of Outlook resulted in an error message:

X.400 Recipient Improvement

In earlier versions of Outlook, when you reply to an Internet e-mail message received via an X.400 link and the display name property of the address is blank, Outlook hangs and does not complete the reply. This problem is corrected in Outlook version 8.04. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

International Improvements

French View Fix

In previous versions of the French version of Outlook, if you try to use a view from the Tasks module titled "par personne responsable," Outlook will respond with "impossible d'afficher cet affichage, impossible de terminer l'operation ; une ou plusieurs valeurs de parametres ne sont pas valides." This is fixed in Outlook 8.04.

Japanese Field Fix

In previous versions of the Japanese version of Outlook, if you post items into a public folder, and the item contains more than one user-defined field whose names include double-byte characters, Outlook will either generate a page fault, or not show the field data in the folder. This problem is corrected in Outlook 8.04

Upgrade Recommendations

Microsoft Office 97 SR-2 must be installed over Microsoft Office 97 SR-1, With Outlook 97 version 8.02, or Outlook 97 version 8.03. SR-2 will not install over Outlook 97 version 8.0 or 8.01. If you use Outlook 97 version 8.0 or 8.01, you must use the SR-1 patch included on the SR-2 compact disc.

All of the corrected problems and improvements noted in this article, as well as many new features such as support for more Internet protocols, are included in Microsoft Outlook 98. For more information about Outlook 98, visit the Microsoft Web site at: