Outlook opens blank Word document on multiple screens

[Ian Bradshaw]

When using Outlook 2007 and you open an email or contact it sporns a blank
Word screen (no documents or anything else) which you are unable to close or
minimise.

If anyone from MS wants a screenshot to see what I'm on about then drop me a
mail ([email protected]).

I've only noticed this on PCs where I have multiple monitors setup; mainly
with the Matrox Pahelia graphics card - either in stretched screen or dual
screen setups.

Is there a solution to this?

Thanks

Ian

----------------
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[Roady [MVP]]

Don't abuse the suggestion feature for this.

Do you see different behavior when you use it on a single monitor?
Do Outlook and the new item load on the same monitor?
Tried when starting Outlook in safe mode?
Tried it with a clean (mail) profile?
Disable all you add-ins and try again.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----
When using Outlook 2007 and you open an email or contact it sporns a blank
Word screen (no documents or anything else) which you are unable to close or
minimise.

If anyone from MS wants a screenshot to see what I'm on about then drop me a
mail ([email protected]).

I've only noticed this on PCs where I have multiple monitors setup; mainly
with the Matrox Pahelia graphics card - either in stretched screen or dual
screen setups.

Is there a solution to this?

Thanks

Ian

 

[Ian Bradshaw]

Hi,

Wasn't trying to abuse anything........

1. Works fine on 1 monitor. Works fine on the same PC if only one monitor is
enabled.
2. No, Word opens on the other screen. Doesn't matter which screen outlook
is on, Word opens on the other.
3. How do you start in safe mode, other than when it has crashed?
4. Its on a clean install, fresh XP SP2 with latest patches and Office 2007.
Nothing else is on there.
5. See 4. Nothing else installed.

Thanks for your help,

Ian.

p.s. We had this on a few PCs with Outlook 2003, but it was corrected by
using Outlook to edit mesages instead of Word. That option doesn't seem to be
there any more?

 

[Roady [MVP]]

You can start Outlook in safe mode by using the /safe startup switch or hold
CTRL when starting Outlook. You can disable add-ins through Tools-> Trust
Center-> Add-Ins

This issue has been reported before in this newsgroup but isn't encountered
for everyone with a multiple monitor configuration.

To send feedback;

"The best tool to use to give us feedback on Office 2007 Beta 2 is called
Send a Smile. Install the Send a Smile tool (
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...E2-BC0F-4403-B09F-7A677D55F274&displaylang=en )
and two icons are added to the notifications area of the taskbar over by the
clock: a happy face to click when you want to give us positive feedback and
a sad face to click when there's something you don't like."

You have room to make comments and send a screen snapshot.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----
Hi,

Wasn't trying to abuse anything........

1. Works fine on 1 monitor. Works fine on the same PC if only one monitor is
enabled.
2. No, Word opens on the other screen. Doesn't matter which screen outlook
is on, Word opens on the other.
3. How do you start in safe mode, other than when it has crashed?
4. Its on a clean install, fresh XP SP2 with latest patches and Office 2007.
Nothing else is on there.
5. See 4. Nothing else installed.

Thanks for your help,

Ian.

p.s. We had this on a few PCs with Outlook 2003, but it was corrected by
using Outlook to edit mesages instead of Word. That option doesn't seem to
be
there any more?

 

[Ian Bradshaw]

Hi,

I'll give that a go thanks.

I'll get that smile thing installed and let them know.

'not encountered for everyone' - no seems to depend on the graphics card.
Matrox, even with certified drivers, seems to be the main one for us.

Cheers

Ian.

You can start Outlook in safe mode by using the /safe startup switch or hold
CTRL when starting Outlook. You can disable add-ins through Tools-> Trust
Center-> Add-Ins

This issue has been reported before in this newsgroup but isn't encountered
for everyone with a multiple monitor configuration.

To send feedback;

"The best tool to use to give us feedback on Office 2007 Beta 2 is called
Send a Smile. Install the Send a Smile tool (
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...E2-BC0F-4403-B09F-7A677D55F274&displaylang=en )
and two icons are added to the notifications area of the taskbar over by the
clock: a happy face to click when you want to give us positive feedback and
a sad face to click when there's something you don't like."

You have room to make comments and send a screen snapshot.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----
Hi,

Wasn't trying to abuse anything........

1. Works fine on 1 monitor. Works fine on the same PC if only one monitor is
enabled.
2. No, Word opens on the other screen. Doesn't matter which screen outlook
is on, Word opens on the other.
3. How do you start in safe mode, other than when it has crashed?
4. Its on a clean install, fresh XP SP2 with latest patches and Office 2007.
Nothing else is on there.
5. See 4. Nothing else installed.

Thanks for your help,

Ian.

p.s. We had this on a few PCs with Outlook 2003, but it was corrected by
using Outlook to edit mesages instead of Word. That option doesn't seem to
be
there any more?

Don't abuse the suggestion feature for this.

Do you see different behavior when you use it on a single monitor?
Do Outlook and the new item load on the same monitor?
Tried when starting Outlook in safe mode?
Tried it with a clean (mail) profile?
Disable all you add-ins and try again.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003
http://www.howto-outlook.com/
Outlook FAQ, HowTo, Downloads, Add-Ins and more

-----
When using Outlook 2007 and you open an email or contact it sporns a blank
Word screen (no documents or anything else) which you are unable to close
or
minimise.

If anyone from MS wants a screenshot to see what I'm on about then drop me
a
mail ([email protected]).

I've only noticed this on PCs where I have multiple monitors setup; mainly
with the Matrox Pahelia graphics card - either in stretched screen or dual
screen setups.

Is there a solution to this?

Thanks

Ian

 

[Mike]

I'm not having the problem with the multiple Word windows, but am disturbed
that 2007 forces you to use Word (which is not an email program) as an
editor. Is there a logical explanation for this, or are they just trying to
beef up the number of Word users? 90% of the problems I've had with Outlook
users is due to using Word as the editor. It slows Outlook down
tremendously, it causes instability, and all this for no real added benefit.
The bottom line is if I want to send someone a Word document, I'll create it
in Word and then attach it to the email.

Mike

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Hi Mike,

Your description is accurate for Outlook 2003, but not for Outlook 2007.
Outlook 2007 does in fact NOT use Word. What is uses is a special Word
DLL that ships with Outlook. So it is not loading Word when you use the
editor, but rather a small, special DLL that is a very stripped down
version of Word. Therefore you don't even need Word on your computer to
use Outlook. In effect, the Word DLL is just serving as editor and it
doesn't have anything to do with Word or Word documents. You are
creating normal plain text, HTML or RTF emails with Outlook as you can
with the Outlook 2003 editor. However due to this change, you get a few
nice benefits. One obvious one is the automatic spell check (the red
squiggles) Word offers.
As this is still a beta version, the performance is currently slower
than what you are used to with Outlook 2003.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Mike]

It still seems ridiculous to me. Auto spell check is not a large enough
benefit for all the instability this is likely to cause. The DLL maybe
small, but the numerous features of Word are not - the spell check feature
you mention while not inherently unstable can be annoying. And none of this
explains why the option to *not* use it was removed. No other email
application I am familiar with removes choices for composing email (indeed,
most allow you to chose your own editor as well as the native one).

In the interim I guess my only choice is to turn off as many 'features' as
possible and hope that Microsoft puts the option to use a native editor
back.

Mike

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

Microsoft will not be putting the option for editor selection back into
Office/Outlook 2007.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, Mike asked:

| It still seems ridiculous to me. Auto spell check is not a large
| enough benefit for all the instability this is likely to cause. The
| DLL maybe small, but the numerous features of Word are not - the
| spell check feature you mention while not inherently unstable can be
| annoying. And none of this explains why the option to *not* use it
| was removed. No other email application I am familiar with removes
| choices for composing email (indeed, most allow you to chose your own
| editor as well as the native one).
|
| In the interim I guess my only choice is to turn off as many
| 'features' as possible and hope that Microsoft puts the option to use
| a native editor back.
|
| Mike
|
| || Hi Mike,
||
|| Your description is accurate for Outlook 2003, but not for Outlook
|| 2007. Outlook 2007 does in fact NOT use Word. What is uses is a
|| special Word DLL that ships with Outlook. So it is not loading Word
|| when you use the editor, but rather a small, special DLL that is a
|| very stripped down version of Word. Therefore you don't even need
|| Word on your computer to use Outlook. In effect, the Word DLL is
|| just serving as editor and it doesn't have anything to do with Word
|| or Word documents. You are creating normal plain text, HTML or RTF
|| emails with Outlook as you can with the Outlook 2003 editor. However
|| due to this change, you get a few nice benefits. One obvious one is
|| the automatic spell check (the red squiggles) Word offers.
|| As this is still a beta version, the performance is currently slower
|| than what you are used to with Outlook 2003.
||
|| Patrick Schmid
|| --------------
|| http://pschmid.net
||
|| ||
||| I'm not having the problem with the multiple Word windows, but am
||| disturbed
||| that 2007 forces you to use Word (which is not an email program) as
||| an editor. Is there a logical explanation for this, or are they
||| just trying to
||| beef up the number of Word users? 90% of the problems I've had with
||| Outlook
||| users is due to using Word as the editor. It slows Outlook down
||| tremendously, it causes instability, and all this for no real added
||| benefit.
||| The bottom line is if I want to send someone a Word document, I'll
||| create it
||| in Word and then attach it to the email.
|||
||| Mike
|||
||| message |||| Hi,
|||
|||| Ian.
||||
|||| p.s. We had this on a few PCs with Outlook 2003, but it was
|||| corrected by
|||| using Outlook to edit mesages instead of Word. That option doesn't
|||| seem to
|||| be
|||| there any more?
||||
|||| "Roady [MVP]" wrote:

 

[Mike]

I was wondering where all those flakes came from ....

Do you know for certain that neither the native editor, or an option to
chose something like Notepad, will not be put back? If you are certain, do
you know why? It just seems odd to me (yes, more head scratching) this
option would be unceremoniously removed without a good reason.

Mike

"Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"

Microsoft will not be putting the option for editor selection back into
Office/Outlook 2007.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, Mike asked:

| It still seems ridiculous to me. Auto spell check is not a large
| enough benefit for all the instability this is likely to cause. The
| DLL maybe small, but the numerous features of Word are not - the
| spell check feature you mention while not inherently unstable can be
| annoying. And none of this explains why the option to *not* use it
| was removed. No other email application I am familiar with removes
| choices for composing email (indeed, most allow you to chose your own
| editor as well as the native one).
|
| In the interim I guess my only choice is to turn off as many
| 'features' as possible and hope that Microsoft puts the option to use
| a native editor back.
|
| Mike
|
| || Hi Mike,
||
|| Your description is accurate for Outlook 2003, but not for Outlook
|| 2007. Outlook 2007 does in fact NOT use Word. What is uses is a
|| special Word DLL that ships with Outlook. So it is not loading Word
|| when you use the editor, but rather a small, special DLL that is a
|| very stripped down version of Word. Therefore you don't even need
|| Word on your computer to use Outlook. In effect, the Word DLL is
|| just serving as editor and it doesn't have anything to do with Word
|| or Word documents. You are creating normal plain text, HTML or RTF
|| emails with Outlook as you can with the Outlook 2003 editor. However
|| due to this change, you get a few nice benefits. One obvious one is
|| the automatic spell check (the red squiggles) Word offers.
|| As this is still a beta version, the performance is currently slower
|| than what you are used to with Outlook 2003.
||
|| Patrick Schmid
|| --------------
|| http://pschmid.net
||
|| ||
||| I'm not having the problem with the multiple Word windows, but am
||| disturbed
||| that 2007 forces you to use Word (which is not an email program) as
||| an editor. Is there a logical explanation for this, or are they
||| just trying to
||| beef up the number of Word users? 90% of the problems I've had with
||| Outlook
||| users is due to using Word as the editor. It slows Outlook down
||| tremendously, it causes instability, and all this for no real added
||| benefit.
||| The bottom line is if I want to send someone a Word document, I'll
||| create it
||| in Word and then attach it to the email.
|||
||| Mike
|||
||| message |||| Hi,
|||
|||| Ian.
||||
|||| p.s. We had this on a few PCs with Outlook 2003, but it was
|||| corrected by
|||| using Outlook to edit mesages instead of Word. That option doesn't
|||| seem to
|||| be
|||| there any more?
||||
|||| "Roady [MVP]" wrote:

 

[Patrick Schmid]

100% sure. It won't come back.
The good reason is maintaining one instead of two codebases for
Microsoft. That is a very good reason.

I was wondering where all those flakes came from ....

Do you know for certain that neither the native editor, or an option to
chose something like Notepad, will not be put back? If you are certain, do
you know why? It just seems odd to me (yes, more head scratching) this
option would be unceremoniously removed without a good reason.

Mike

"Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"

Microsoft will not be putting the option for editor selection back into
Office/Outlook 2007.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, Mike asked:

| It still seems ridiculous to me. Auto spell check is not a large
| enough benefit for all the instability this is likely to cause. The
| DLL maybe small, but the numerous features of Word are not - the
| spell check feature you mention while not inherently unstable can be
| annoying. And none of this explains why the option to *not* use it
| was removed. No other email application I am familiar with removes
| choices for composing email (indeed, most allow you to chose your own
| editor as well as the native one).
|
| In the interim I guess my only choice is to turn off as many
| 'features' as possible and hope that Microsoft puts the option to use
| a native editor back.
|
| Mike
|
| || Hi Mike,
||
|| Your description is accurate for Outlook 2003, but not for Outlook
|| 2007. Outlook 2007 does in fact NOT use Word. What is uses is a
|| special Word DLL that ships with Outlook. So it is not loading Word
|| when you use the editor, but rather a small, special DLL that is a
|| very stripped down version of Word. Therefore you don't even need
|| Word on your computer to use Outlook. In effect, the Word DLL is
|| just serving as editor and it doesn't have anything to do with Word
|| or Word documents. You are creating normal plain text, HTML or RTF
|| emails with Outlook as you can with the Outlook 2003 editor. However
|| due to this change, you get a few nice benefits. One obvious one is
|| the automatic spell check (the red squiggles) Word offers.
|| As this is still a beta version, the performance is currently slower
|| than what you are used to with Outlook 2003.
||
|| Patrick Schmid
|| --------------
|| http://pschmid.net
||
|| ||
||| I'm not having the problem with the multiple Word windows, but am
||| disturbed
||| that 2007 forces you to use Word (which is not an email program) as
||| an editor. Is there a logical explanation for this, or are they
||| just trying to
||| beef up the number of Word users? 90% of the problems I've had with
||| Outlook
||| users is due to using Word as the editor. It slows Outlook down
||| tremendously, it causes instability, and all this for no real added
||| benefit.
||| The bottom line is if I want to send someone a Word document, I'll
||| create it
||| in Word and then attach it to the email.
|||
||| Mike
|||
||| message |||| Hi,
|||
|||| Ian.
||||
|||| p.s. We had this on a few PCs with Outlook 2003, but it was
|||| corrected by
|||| using Outlook to edit mesages instead of Word. That option doesn't
|||| seem to
|||| be
|||| there any more?
||||
|||| "Roady [MVP]" wrote: