Outlook Tips

General tips and tricks to improve overall Outlook performance

Turn off WordMail if you have it enabled. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the E-mail tab. Clear the "Use Word as the e-mail editor" check box. Turn off Outlook journaling. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Journal tab. In the "Also record files from" and "Automatically record these items" list, clear all of the check boxes. Occasionally, an Outlook profile, a personal folder, the Outlook Bar file, or a password list can become damaged or corrupted. Check to be sure these files aren't damaged, and consult the following KB article for additional details:http://www.microsoft.com/kb/articles/Q162/9/91.htm. The Outlook Forms Fix utility can improve performance if you happen to be using both Outlook and the Exchange client. For more information, see tip #15. The Internet Mail Enhancement Patch (IMEP) improves Outlook performance for sending and receiving Internet mail.

How to set up Outlook for use with Internet mail

To send and receive Internet mail, you must configure Outlook to use an information service that can deliver Internet mail. The Internet Mail Information Service holds information pertinent to your mailbox for login purposes and delivers your messages from the mail server to your computer and vice-versa. To add the Internet Mail Information Service to your profile, use the following steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click Services.
2. On the Services tab, click Add.
3. In the Available Information Services box, click the Internet Mail Information Service and click OK.
4. Type in the necessary information to log in to your mail server and click the Connection tab to configure your connection type.
5. Click OK twice.
6. Exit and restart Outlook.

MSN 2.0 and Outlook integration

When you use Microsoft Outlook 97 with MSN version 2.0, you may, in rare cases, experience incompatibility problems such as: Outlook may stop responding (hang) on opening. You may get a general protection fault on opening Outlook. Sending and receiving mail may not work. You may have problems with Remote Mail services. You may receive a Fatal Exception Error 06 while in a session with MSN or following a session with MSN.

These problems can be corrected if MSN is installed and working properly before Outlook is installed. If the problem still persists after removing both products and then reinstalling first MSN and then Outlook, try starting Outlook through the MSN Viewer by clicking the MSN icon on the desktop, clicking Communicate, and clicking "start e-mail."

Tame your inbox

The Outlook Rules Wizard provides several templates you can use to create rules and filters for your Inbox. You create rules using common words, not special commands or codes. You can use an existing message as a template for a new rule, or choose the type of rule you want to create and then fill in the blanks. Or you can start from scratch and make your own conditions and actions. Every rule has an exception. You can make a rule that's applied in almost every case: for example, you can have a rule for moving messages that ignores a message if it is marked as having high importance.

Read your e-mail at lightning speed

For users who receive many messages in a day, Outlook's AutoPreview functionality can significantly reduce the time they spend reading e-mail. AutoPreview displays the first few lines of the body of their messages, which enables them to quickly understand what they are about and read or delete messages without actually opening them. Now, with the Outlook 3-Pane Extension, Outlook users also have the option of displaying an entire e-mail message at the bottom of a view without needing to open the message. The 3-Pane viewer can be used by itself or in conjunction with AutoPreview. In addition, users can adjust the splitter bar of the 3-Pane viewer up and down to see as much or as little of the selected message as they choose.

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