Exchange & Outlook UPDATE, Outlook Edition, November 21, 2003

~~~~ This Issue Sponsored By ~~~~

NetIQ

http://www.netiq.com/f/form/form.asp?id=2086&origin=NS_ExchUpdte_112103

Neverfail

http://us.neverfailgroup.com/default.asp?target=exadminspec

===============

1. Commentary - Dealing with .pst Files 2. Announcements - Order Windows & .NET Magazine and the Article Archive CD at One Low Rate! - 2004 Date Announced: Windows & .NET Magazine Connections 3. Resources - Tip: Using Outlook to Track Expenses 4. Events - Have You Checked Out Windows & .NET Magazine's Archived Web Seminars Lately? 5. New and Improved - Improve Outlook Performance - Tell Us About a Hot Product and Get a T-Shirt! 6. Contact Us - See this section for a list of ways to contact us.

==========

~~~~ Sponsor: NetIQ ~~~~ Step-by-Step Guide to Ensuring and Optimizing Exchange You've got to reduce costs while assuring the reliability of your Exchange Servers 24x7. NetIQ can help you monitor your Exchange environment to ensure Exchange services are up and running while managing all components - including Active Directory and Domain Name Services. Get our FREE white paper, "Monitoring and Managing Exchange," to discover how to secure ingoing/outgoing content flowing through your messaging system. You'll also learn how to measure response times throughout your organization, as well as coming from other different organizations, and automatically discover what services are running on each Exchange Server. Register now! http://www.netiq.com/f/form/form.asp?id=2086&origin=NS_ExchUpdte_112103

==========

==== 1. Commentary: Dealing with .pst Files ==== by Sue Mosher, News Editor, [email protected] Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 can support much larger Personal Folders (.pst) files than earlier versions--up to 33TB. Given the possibility that archive or export .pst files might grow large enough to crowd out other data on users' hard disks, you might want to look again at .pst file usage in your organization. Outlook 2003 lets you use Group Policy to control the size of both the old and new .pst files. Even if you aren't planning to move to Outlook 2003 any time soon, knowing how Outlook uses .pst files and which uses you can disable in earlier versions can come in handy. Outlook uses .pst files in more ways than you might realize. The most familiar use is a standalone user using a .pst file instead of an Exchange mailbox as the default information store. Users typically can create additional .pst files by turning on Outlook's AutoArchive feature, which moves older items into a .pst file on a regular schedule, or by using the File, Import and Export command to export data to a .pst file. Outlook also automatically creates a .pst file if the user adds an IMAP4 or Hotmail account to his or her email profile; Outlook uses this .pst file to store a local cache of the IMAP or Hotmail account's messages. Finally, Outlook 2003 creates a new .pst file if the user views a Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) events or contacts list and clicks the "Link to Outlook" link; this .pst file contains the local copy of the linked SharePoint lists. To provide some control over .pst file use, Outlook 98 and later support a DisablePST registry value. This DWORD value is under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftOffice11.0Outlook registry subkey in Outlook 2003; change "11.0" to "10.0" for Outlook 2002, "9.0" for Outlook 2000, or "8.0" for Outlook 98. The DisablePST value isn't present by default, so you need to add it if you want to disable .pst file use. Allowable values are 1 (disabled) and 0 (enabled, the default). DisablePST's initial use in early builds of Outlook 2002, Outlook 2000, and Outlook 98 was to prevent users from archiving and exporting to or importing from a .pst file. Setting DisablePST to 1 in those versions turns off those features and disables the creation of new .pst files from the File, New menu. User accounts that you configure in Corporate/Workgroup mode, however, can still add a new or existing .pst file to their email profile (through the File, Data File Management dialog box in Outlook 2002 or the Tools, Services dialog box in Outlook 2000 or Outlook 98), so some ad hoc .pst file use is still possible in these versions. Beginning with Outlook 2002 (with Office XP Service Pack 2--SP2--applied) and continuing with Outlook 2003, DisablePST blocks all user-controlled methods of creating a new .pst file. Setting DisablePST to 1 prevents all new .pst files except those that Outlook itself creates for use with IMAP or Hotmail accounts or WSS lists. Even with the archive and export features disabled, however, users can open an existing .pst file by using the File, Open, Outlook Data File command, and users can copy or move items into that file. If you want to prevent users from opening a .pst file, you can use Group Policy to disable the Outlook Data File command. You'll need to know the command's ID, which is 5576, and be familiar with Group Policy operations. (For Group Policy resources, search the Windows & .NET Magazine Web site at http://www.winnetmag.com .) When you deploy Outlook 2003, you can use the Custom Installation Wizard or Custom Maintenance Wizard from the Office Resource Kit (ORK) to determine what kind of .pst files users can create. On the wizards' Change Office User Settings page, look for the PST Settings options under Microsoft Office Outlook 2003/Miscellaneous. You can set values for "Default location for .pst files" and "Preferred PST Mode (Unicode/ANSI)." A Unicode .pst file is the new type supported in Outlook 2003; ANSI refers to the older type that's limited to 2GB. Setting the Preferred PST Mode adds a string registry value named NewPSTFormat to the HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice11.0Outlook subkey. NewPSTFormat can have the following values: Prefer Unicode PST: 0 (default)
Prefer ANSI PST: 1
Enforce Unicode PST: 2
Enforce ANSI PST: 3 By using a value of 2 or 3, you can restrict all new .pst files to either the old format or the new format. The corresponding set of policies listed in Group Policy Editor (GPE) under User ConfigurationAdministrative TemplatesMicrosoft Office Outlook 2003MiscellaneousPST Settings goes one step further than the ORK tools and provides a way to limit the growth of both old and new .pst files without totally restricting their use. A bit inconsistently, the policies use the term "Large PST" for the Unicode format and "Legacy PST" for the older ANSI format, but for each .pst format, you can set an absolute maximum size and a separate "Size to disable adding new content." The default maximum size for a Unicode .pst file is about 20MB. With this array of policies and registry settings, Outlook--particularly Outlook 2003--lets you control end users' access to .pst files, set .pst file size limits, control the type of .pst files Outlook 2003 users can create, prohibit the use of new .pst files, and even suppress the menu command for opening an existing .pst file.

==========

~~~~ Sponsor: Neverfail ~~~~ Free white paper: Has your Exchange server ever failed? Has your business suffered a loss of communications at critical moments because your Exchange server was down? Neverfail for Exchange is a software solution that ensures true application availability. It's easy to install and use. To learn how Neverfail can help your business save IT dollars and resources access a free white paper or register for a free online seminar at: http://us.neverfailgroup.com/default.asp?target=exadminspec

==========

==== 2. Announcements ==== (from Windows & .NET Magazine and its partners) Order Windows & .NET Magazine and the Article Archive CD at One Low Rate! What's better than Windows & .NET Magazine? Try Windows & .NET Magazine and the Windows & .NET Magazine Article Archive CD at one super low rate. Read Windows & .NET Magazine in the office. Take the Article Archive CD with you on the road. Subscribe now! http://www.winnetmag.com/rd.cfm?code=wcep203xcc 2004 Date Announced: Windows & .NET Magazine Connections Windows & .NET Magazine Connections will be held April 4 to 7, 2004, in Las Vegas at the new Hyatt Lake Las Vegas Resort. Be sure to save these dates on your calendar. Early registrants will receive the greatest possible discount. For more information, call 203-268-3204 or 800-505-1201 or go online at http://www.devconnections.com ==== 3. Resources ==== Tip: Using Outlook to Track Expenses by Sue Mosher, [email protected] Q: How can I record expenses associated with a meeting in the Calendar folder and periodically print reports that show all expenses incurred between specific dates? A: To record expenses that relate to a specific Calendar appointment or meeting, create a new table view that includes the Billing Information field in the Calendar folder. Click View, Current View, Customize Current View, Other Settings, then enable in-cell editing so that you can make changes in the table view. You can then type dollar amounts directly into the field and print the table view. You can also create a custom currency property for the folder instead of using the built-in Billing Information property. Creating a custom property lets you give the property a more meaningful name and lets you limit user input to currency amounts. (Billing Information is a text field that accepts any input.) The key disadvantage of using a custom property is that Outlook doesn't let you directly export custom property data. However, you can copy data from the table view and paste it into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Note that you can't use this method with recurring appointments because the individual recurrences appear only in a day/week/month view, not in the table view. See the Exchange & Outlook Web page for more great tips from Sue Mosher. http://www.winnetmag.com/microsoftexchangeoutlook ==== 4. Events ==== (brought to you by Windows & .NET Magazine) Have You Checked Out Windows & .NET Magazine's Archived Web Seminars Lately? Find timely information about email abuse and the security and business concerns surrounding the use and abuse of email within companies. Or, learn more about identity management and how you can benefit from greater security, improved productivity, and better manageability. Sign up and receive a free identity management white paper. Register now for these two informative Web seminars! http://www.winnetmag.com/seminars ==== 5. New and Improved ==== by Carolyn Mader, [email protected] Improve Outlook Performance MAPILab announced several Outlook add-ons that can help improve performance. Redirect for Outlook ensures that the recipient of a redirected message will see the message in the same format sent by the initial sender. Send Personally removes the long message heading from messages that are addressed to many recipients. Advanced Folders Watch monitors personal and public folders and notifies the user of messages that match preset search criteria. Subscription Manager lets users subscribe and unsubscribe to mailing lists through email. For pricing, contact MAPILab at 877-627-4522. http://www.mapilab.com Tell Us About a Hot Product and Get a T-Shirt! Have you used a product that changed your IT experience by saving you time or easing your daily burden? Tell us about the product, and we'll send you a Windows & .NET Magazine T-shirt if we write about the product in a future Windows & .NET Magazine What's Hot column. Send your product suggestions with information about how the product has helped you to [email protected].

==========

~~~~ Sponsored Links ~~~~ Sybari Software Free! "Admins Shortcut Guide to Email Protection" from Sybari http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;6574227;8214395;q?http://www.sybari.com/ebook Microsoft(R) Security Readiness Kit Get your free kit for creating an enhanced risk-management plan. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;6600432;8214395;e?http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;6576037;8608804;t?http://www.microsoftsecuritysolutions.com/Default.asp?id=ros VMware Inc. FREE VMware Workstation for Microsoft Certified Trainers. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;6602582;8214395;m?http://www.vmware.com/wl/offer/486/0

==========

==== 6. Contact Us ==== About the newsletter -- [email protected] About technical questions -- http://www.winnetmag.com/forums About product news -- [email protected] About sponsoring Exchange & Outlook UPDATE -- [email protected]

===============

This email newsletter is brought to you by Exchange & Outlook Administrator, the print newsletter with practical advice, tips, and techniques covering migration, backup and restoration, security, and much more. Subscribe today. https://secure.pentontech.com/nt/exchange/index.cfm?promocode=00ei20xxup

Copyright 2003, Penton Media, Inc.