I do have to agree about the labelling of the Outlook 2002 with Business
Contact Manager. It is actually only the add-in on the CD as Outlook is on
the Office Pro CD. Perhaps I could put a bug in Microsoft's ear to add to
the label "previous installation of Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 required."
As for the Outlook issue, I am at a loss since it works perfectly for me
under many different scenarios. I guess that is why the product is still in
beta, no?
As for the comment about testing, I reread the thread and I apologize if I
inferred that you did not believe Microsoft does customer usability testing.
My bad.
--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact.
Having searched the archives, Paul Lemonidis <
[email protected]>
asked
| Hi Milly
|
| Thankyou for your reply. I am afraid that is wasn't me
| that made comments about testing.
|
| I agree with you about Business Contact Manager being an
| add-in. I do find it rather strange though that the CD is
| labelled "Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager" and
| the first thing the setup program does is try to install
| the add-in with no option for Outlook installation and
| then totally refuses to proceed. I would have thought
| common sense would dictate that if a product is labelled
| Outlook 2003 that you would at least have the option to
| install it!? If I have misunderstood the contents of the
| CD then perhaps the title should be changed as I did
| genuinely expect Outlook 2003 to be on there given its
| title. Perhaps I am mistaken about the content?
|
| Having installed the whole Office suite I tried to get
| Outlook to connect to one Exchange 2000 server and another
| Exchange 2003 server. On both occasions as soon as I tried
| validating the username and server name during the profile
| creation process it generated an error about being unable
| to connect due to network problems. I hasten to add that
| the same info. worked fine with Outlook XP previously. OWA
| access to both servers worked fine and I could map drives
| to the servers as well as run Terminal Server Sessions at
| the very same time after temporarily quitting the profile
| creation wizard. Thus the problem appears to clearly be
| with Outlook. Reverting back to Outlook XP reverted back
| to normality other than having to recreate my OST file.
|
| I did wonder if perhaps I had made an error when I
| activated the product but when I tried activating again
| from within Outlook it reported it was already activated.
|
| I do appreciate that this is a beta test and so some
| errors are to be expected but I would expect basic
| functionality.
|
| Regards,
|
| Paul Lemonidis.
|
|| -----Original Message-----
|| This is a beta product so problems are to be expected.
||
|| However, you are incorrect that Microsoft does no testing with its
|| customers. It conducts extensive usability tests on every product.
|| If the majority of users use the product in a manner that is
|| counter-intuitive to you, this does not make the product change a
|| downgrade if it does not suit how you work with Office.
||
|| Outlook connects fine to my Exchange 2000 server and to a friend's
|| Exchange 2003 server (same Outlook 2003 on a laptop that I take with
|| me when I visit him.) What problems are you having?
||
|| Also, the Business Contact Manager is an add-in to Outlook, which is
|| why Outlook must be installed first. Kind of hard to use an add-in
|| to a product which is not installed. The installation issue may be
|| fixed in the final product.
||
|| As for Outlook Web Access, the change in Exchange 2003 was made
|| specifically to make the client and OWA indistinguishable. It allows
|| more people to access an Exchange mailbox without having to have
|| Outlook installed since it is a web view.
||
|| As for the Reading Pane and Navigation Pane, I guess different
|| strokes, etc. I personally find the product vastly improved over
|| prior versions of Outlook and can quickly read most mail (as it
|| mostly all fits in the Reading Pane) without having to scroll.
|| There are many other features (search folders among them) that
|| increase Outlook's value to many testers and public beta users.
||
|| Sorry that you do not find any value in this version. There will
|| always be others and perhaps you will find value in a future
|| version. What you see now in the beta version may not be what shows
|| in the final released version. However, value is always in the eye
|| of the user.
||
|| --
|| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
||
|| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact.
||
||
|| Having searched the archives and finding no answer, Paul Lemonidis
|| <
[email protected]> asked:
||| Hi All
|||
||| A word of caution. Install Office 2003 at your peril. It
||| creates no shortcuts whatsover, Outlook will not connect
||| to any Exchange servers and best of all the Business
||| Contact Manger will only install after Outlook is
||| installed. This is even though they are on the same
||| standalone CD! There is no option to install Outlook first
||| from the stand alone CD first thus making the CD totally
||| useless!! Best of all the default view when you first open
||| up Outlook 2003 is in my opinion a complete mess. They
||| have effectively downgraded Outlook to make Outlook 2003
||| and OWA against a Exchange 2003 server look the same and
||| it isn't neat by any means in my opinion.
|||
||| Sorry guys but I am not impressed!
|||
||| Regards,
|||
||| Paul Lemonidis.
||
||
|| .
