The add-in is compatible with Microsoft Outlook 2007 and will install a new toolbar into the application after installation. It will also install various runtimes that are needed to run the Outlook add-in.

The options to export the data from Microsoft Outlook is then available from the new toolbar. It is here possible to export Outlook emails, notes, appointments, contacts or tasks into the following formats: MSG, unicode MSG, RTF, TXT, CSV, ICS, vCard, HTML, XML

The user can either select an Outlook folder or single items for the export of the data. Outlook Data Export can be downloaded from the program’s page over at the Codeplex website. It is only compatible with Microsoft Office 2007.

The installation of the Facebook add-on for Outlook takes only a few seconds and requires no user interaction at all. New buttons are added to the Outlook toolbar that become visible on the next start of the email client.

It is obviously required to log into Facebook before information can be retrieved and send to the online service. This is done by clicking on the Login to Facebook button in Outlook. It will spawn a new browser window or tab that is displaying the Facebook login page. The user has to log in and confirm the log in in Outlook to be able to use the controls in the email client.

From then on its possible to use all the features provided by the Microsoft Outlook add-on. One interesting option provided is to update the Facebook status using the music track played in either Windows Media Player or iTunes.

This can be easily achieved by pressing the Shift key and at least two title columns. It is for example possible to sort by sender and date, title and date or sender and subject. The only important thing to remember is to press the shift key while doing it to get the desired effect.

Outlook will display the up and down sorting icons (up or down arrow) in the columns that have been chosen by the user to make it easier to understand how the emails were sorted. The first selected column will be the primary sort order, the second obviously the secondary with the possibility to add additional columns as well.

Here is a practical example. Lets say you receive lots of message from one email sender. You can sort the emails in Outlook by sender which would display the most recent emails from that sender on the top. If you wanted to sort these emails by size you would simply press shift and then click on the from and size column titles so that the largest emails would be displayed on top from each sender (another click on the size column would sort them with the lowest on top as it would reverse the sort order).

This sorting technique works not only with emails in Outlook but also RSS feeds and pretty much everything else that is displayed in tables in the email client.

The Outlook Auto BCC / CC add-in has been designed specifically for Microsoft Outlook. It allows the installation of automatic bcc and cc recipients in email messages based on rules. Possibilities include setting a rul for all outgoing emails from all email accounts, messages send to specific email addresses or messages that match specific phrases in the subject or attachment.

It is furthermore possible to create exceptions to rules so that certain email addresses and emails do not get archived or monitored.

This is an excellent solution for email archiving as well as it it unproblematic to send all emails to another email account for backup purposes. It would for example be possible to create a backup Gmail account and add that new email account as a BCC recipient for all email messages that are send from Microsoft Outlook. Another interesting option is to configure the Microsoft Outlook add-in so that only emails that contain specific keywords or phrases are send to another recipient.

The main benefit of this email archiving and monitoring solution is that the user behind the monitor does not has to remember to add a BCC or CC recipient as the Outlook add-in manages all aspects of this automatically.

Auto BCC / CC is compatible with Microsoft Outlook 2007, Outlook 2003, Outlook XP (2002) and Outlook 2000.

Two of the features added by the Outlook add-on are reminders that check each email message when the user clicks the send button in the email program. The first reminder will check if a subject line has been added to the email. If that is not the case it will display a small popup window notifying the user of the missing subject line. The user then has the option to cancel sending the email to go back into editing mode and add a subject line or send the email anyway.

The second reminder will look for keywords in the email body that suggest that an attachment should have been added to the email message. If it finds a keyword but not attachment it will notify the user as well.

The last feature that is added by the Microsoft Outlook 2007 Essentials add-in is the ability to print a selection of the email message. This is done by right-clicking an email, selecting Outlook Essentials Mail Viewer, selecting the part of the email to be printed and right-clicking again to print the selection.

The Microsoft Outlook add-in might be useful for some users who either want to be extra careful to never forget to add attachments and subject lines to their email messages or who want to have the option to print a selection of emails.

The general responsiveness of Outlook 2007 has been increased by reducing the I/O disk usage processes and UI response times. Startup has been improved by moving long operations from the initial startup while shutdown time was decreased by making Outlook exit predictable. Finally the folder and view switching benefits from improved view rendering and folder switching routines.

The update is currently classified as a hotfix meaning that users will have to request it by providing their email address on a form at the Microsoft website. Users who do use Microsoft Outlook 2007 as their main email client will benefit from the update to a large extent. Startup time might be slower during first startup because of a one-time data structure upgrade.

Microsoft has updated their Mailbox Storage Size Guidance to reflect the performance and responsiveness improvements when utilizing Cached Exchange Mode with respect to mailbox/OST sizes:

• Up to 5 gigabytes (GB): This size should provide a good user experience on most hardware.
• Between 5 GB and 10 GB: This size is typically hardware dependent. Therefore, if you have a fast hard disk and much RAM, your experience will be better. However, slower hard drives, such as drives that are typically found on portable computers or early generation solid state drives (SSDs), experience some application pauses when the drives respond.
• More than 10 GB: This size is where short pauses begin to occur on most hardware.
• Very large, such as 25 GB or larger: This size increases the frequency of the short pauses, especially while you are downloading new e-mail. Alternatively, you can use Send/Receive groups to manually sync your mail.

The service pack for Outlook 2007 contains additional improvements for components like the Calendar or Outlook search among others. Interested users can read up on the Outlook 2007 SP1 update by visiting the extensive Microsoft Knowledgebase article and an official blog post covering the release announcement.

New rules are created using a wizard that is guiding the user through the process. It starts with the selection of one or multiple mail folders in Outlook or the Microsoft Exchange Server. All incoming messages and posts will be scanned for keywords that are defined in step 2. It is possible to define keywords that have to be included in the posts or keywords that do not have to be in them for the Outlook add-in to become active.

The notifications are defined in the last step. Four different notifications are available. It is possible to create a post in a folder, play a sound, create a copy in a folder or to create a notification in the popup window. The popup window is basically a monitoring window that has been created for that purpose.

The add-in is compatible with Microsoft Outlook 2007 and Windows Vista. It will also run on previous versions of Microsoft Windows (tested on Windows XP) and Microsoft Outlook but the specific versions are not mentioned on the developer’s homepage.

Advanced Folders Watch

The free Microsoft Outlook 2007 add-in aims to provide users with a new way to prioritize emails by temporarily halting email delivery and ranking emails to aid the user in selecting the most important emails first.

The add-in adds a new toolbar to Microsoft Outlook 2007 which provides access to the features. Priorities are assigned by making use through a handful of parameters and user input who can select a priority for an email which will use the information to assign priorities to future emails.

The email pause can be set to an interval between 10 minutes and 4 hours. That would be the period that no new emails would arrive in the user’s mail inbox.

Please keep in mind that Email Prioritizer is a prototype release. Only brave (or foolish) souls would use a prototype in a work environment.

The 4.4 Megabyte download of Microsoft Office Outlook Connector 12.1 Beta is available from the official Microsoft website and integrates itself nicely into Microsoft Outlook. It provides an option that many Windows Live users have probably been looking forward to; The ability to synchronize multiple calendars between the different Microsoft applications. (for example between Microsoft Outlook and Windows Live Calendar)

Several other features are introduced in this new version of Microsoft Office Outlook Connector: The ability to read and send Office Live Mail or Windows Live Hotmail messages, to manage the Windows Live Mail contacts or to manage multiple email accounts in one place.

Microsoft Office Outlook Connector definitely comes in handy if a user is using Microsoft Outlook on his computer but also Windows Live Hotmail or Office Live Mail on the web to send emails, manage contacts and maintain a calendar.

The first public release of Defrost Outlook has the version number 0.8 and the author Daniel Cohen asking the users to contribute by sending him error reports and descriptions of hangs in Microsoft Outlook.

The source code and the binary of the application are available for download. The binary can be installed as a plugin for Microsoft Outlook and intercepts appointments and fixes them so that they do not freeze the system. The plugin is a workaround until Microsoft publishes an official fix for the bug.

Some user report that the freezes started after installing Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Office and that they would not happen if in Microsoft Outlook without installed Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Office.

The first step after installing the add-on for Microsoft Outlook is to add the photographic equipment to the Equipment Pool. Not only name and type of the equipment can be added but also its serial number, purchase price and date which can come in handy if equipment gets stolen or damaged.

The list can be printed to have a reference in paper form. By default only the name and type of the equipment are displayed when creating a new photo shoot appointment. It is possible to add the other three parameters, purchase date, price and serial number as well.

Besides adding the equipment for the photo shoot appointment one also needs to add a name for it and a client that can be selected from the contact list or created anew.

The installation requires a restart of Microsoft Outlook before the add-on becomes visible.

Nirsoft created the PstPassword (via Genbeta) application, a Outlook PST Password Recovery software compatible to Outlook 97, Outlook 2000, Outlook XP, Outlook 2003, and Outlook 2007 which does not require Outlook to be installed on the system to recover the passwords. As usual the software can be run from any location on the hard drive without installation.

It also comes with a graphical user interface and command line options, high quality like usual. All pst files of the user who is logged into the system will be displayed automatically. Other pst files can be dragged into the program window or loaded from the File menu.

Several passwords can restore the contents of a pst file which is why PstPassword displays three working ones after analysing the pst file. Each password will work and it can be that none of them is the original password that was used to password protect the file. The list of passwords can be saved in various formats for later usage.

Outlook Tools is a software that gives access to advanced Microsoft Outlook settings that would otherwise be hard to reach. You can use it for instance to unblock file extensions which would otherwise be only possible in the Windows Registry. Five tabs are accessible at the top of the software once it is started, they are General, Startup Switches, Clear MRU, New Mail Alert and Blocked Attachments.

Most of the options are self explanatory like the Clear MRU which simply clears several most recently used lists in Outlook such as the Search history. The software runs independently from Outlook and automatically detects the installed version. Supported are all versions of Outlook since Outlook 2000. There is no word about Outlook Express on the page and I was not able to test it, I would think that it is supported as well.

Outlook Tools require the Microsoft .net framework and runs on Windows 2000, XP and Vista.