Using a Message to Create a New Item in a Different Folder

When I drag an email message to the Notes folder in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, a new sticky note pops up, but it contains only the From, To, and other header information. How can I get it to include the message body, too?

Dragging and dropping messages to different folders is a popular and easy way to create new items that contain information from the original message. I use the technique often to create a new contact and to save the message so that I can remember how I came to know that person. In Outlook 2003 before Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1), though, this feature doesn't work properly with the Notes folder when the message is in HTML format. After you apply SP1, dragging an HTML-format message to the Notes folder will work as expected—that is, it will copy the full header and body text into the note.

Fortunately, SP1 also adds a registry value that suppresses custom form autosignatures, returning Outlook 2003 to its previous behavior. Create a REG_DWORD value named NoAutosigOnCustomForms in the HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice11.0OutlookOptions subkey. Set the value to 1 to suppress automatic signatures on custom forms or 0 to allow automatic signatures.

Note that this new signature behavior, along with the support for the No AutosigOnCustomForms value, is also present in Outlook 2002 with Microsoft Office XP SP3 applied. The registry subkey is HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice10.0OutlookOptions.

—Sue Mosher