FIX: Installation runs every time you start Outlook 2013 on Windows Server 2008 R2…

Recently I was working with one of my customer, where they installed Outlook 2013 (32-bit) on Windows Server 2008 R2 (64 bit) environment. Every time when you start Outlook 2013, it runs an installation (Microsoft Office 64-bit Components 2013) – just like the below. I know it’s strange.

They tried repairing/fresh install, updated latest fixes as well – still it haven’t fixed this behavior; strangely this happened only in this server.  To fix the error, they tried the following: Added Windows Search Service to the File Services role on servers.

Adding related thread that I found the MSDN Community is here. Happy troubleshooting!!

Analyze Microsoft Office programs problems, issues using OffCAT 2.0

The Microsoft Office Configuration Analyzer Tool (OffCAT) 2.0 provides a quick and easy way to analyze Microsoft Office programs for known configurations that cause problems.  Now with latest OffCAT 2.0, it provides a detailed report of your installed Office programs. This report includes many parameters about your Office program configuration and highlights known problems found when OffCAT scans your computer. For any problems that are listed in the report, you are provided with a link to a public-facing article (usually a Microsoft Knowledge Base article) on the issue so you can read about possible fixes for the problem. If you are a Help Desk professional, you can also save the report to file so that the results can be viewed in the Office Configuration Analyzer Tool on another client where the tool is installed. The Office Configuration Analyzer Tool also includes a command-line version that can be used to collect an OffCAT scan without user intervention.

What you got with new OffCAT 2.0:
– New User Interface (UI)
– Improved Reading pane
– More detailed info about scans
– Real time detection & Crash

By downloading OffCAT.msi for OffCAT 2.0, you are hereby consenting to the installation of this program to analyze select Microsoft Office programs on your computer. You can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36852

Install it at the machine which you want to troubleshoot:

On successful update, you can see:

Now you can select which specific Office suite you want to scan:

I selected Microsoft Outlook and let it scan of Outlook…

On successful scan you can see the detailed report, so that you can analyze it on your own…

Recommendation: If you want to investigate in-detail what’s in the report, then I would recommend you to refer Greg Mansius detailed post at http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2015/04/13/upgrade-to-office-configuration-analyzer-tool-offcat-version-2.aspx.

Update: Here is a short overview to start the OffCAT Tool you can try the following:

1. To start the Office Configuration Analyzer Tool, click the Microsoft Office Configuration Analyzer Tool icon on the Start menu.
   Note, if you are using Windows 8, search for OffCAT on the Start Screen to launch OffCAT.
2. After OffCAT is started, select the Office program (and possibly the version) to be scanned, and then click Scan.
   Note: Outlook must be running in order to perform a scan of Outlook.

1. After the scan is finished, the report that OffCAT generated is automatically displayed and the list of detected issues is arranged by ‘Symptom’.
2. Expand the symptom(s) in the list that most closely match(es) the problem(s) you are experiencing in the scanned Office program.
3. Click on an issue under the symptom group to see additional information on the issue.
4. Click the ‘Click here to see possible solutions to this issue’ link to open the article containing a resolution to the issue.
5. Repeat the previous three steps for any other issues you would like to address.

Documentation:
Also have a look at OffCAT Readme document.

Happy debugging!!

Workaround: Command (send to > Mail recipient or File > Send as attachment) might not work when Outlook 2007 / 2010 is running and installed side-by-side with Outlook 2013

When Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010 is running and installed side-by-side with Outlook 2013, Outlook shows the following message when you click Send To > Mail Recipient in Windows Explorer or click File > Send As Attachment in another program: This action is not supported while an older version of Outlook is running

In order to move ahead, you can try the following workaround: First, close the earlier version of Outlook, and repeat your steps. Or create a new email message in Outlook and click Insert > Attach File to attach the file. Viola, it just works!!

Fix: Using Outlook to send an e-mail message, the recipient of the message see Winmail.dat attachment

One of our customer reported that one of their recipient receives winmail.dat in the messages as the attachment. Based on analysis, we found that if the recipients of your messages receive an attachment called winmail.dat, you sent messages to them that included Microsoft Exchange Rich Text formatting (RTF), such as bold or italic text, but the recipients do not use an e-mail program that can read this format or does not support certain message formats or certain features that are included in the e-mail message.

To overcome this, try the following:

1) Using Outlook UI:

To select a message format do the following:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. On the Mail Format tab, under Message format, in the Compose in this message format list, click HTML or Plain Text.

2) Using Microsoft Fixit.

There is a fix available from Microsoft Fixit site regarding the same. Please refer the KB before you download it.

To fix this problem automatically, first install hotfix 957692 ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957692/ ) then click the Fix this problem link. Then click Run in the File Download dialog box, and follow the steps in this wizard.

Fix this problem
Microsoft Fix it 50041

Hope this helps.

Security warning: The name of the security certificate is invalid or does not match the name of the site

Recently i started MS Outlook 2007 and tried connecting to a mailbox that is hosted on a mailbox server that is running Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 inside the local network. I received the following security warning “The name of the security certificate is invalid or does not match the name of the site.”

During my analysis, i found that this error had happened due to the default self-signed Exchange Server 2010 certificate – it causing a name mismatch error to occur.

Also regarding this, i found the following support knowledgebase article talks about it – this scenario applies only to Outlook clients that connect to Exchange from inside the local network.In order to overcome the problem and the article provides resolution also.

Based on the above article this issue may occur if the following conditions are true:

• You replace the default self-signed Exchange Server 2007 or Exchange Server 2010 certificate with a different certificate.
  Note The Setup program in Exchange Server 2007 or in Exchange Server 2010 creates a default self-signed certificate when Exchange Server 2007 or Exchange Server 2010 is installed.
• The common name on the replacement certificate does not match the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the URL that is stored in the following objects:
  • The Service Connection Point object for the Auto discover service
  • The InternalUrl attribute of Exchange 2007 Web Service (EWS)
  • The InternalUrl attribute of the Offline Address Book Web service
  • The InternalUrl attribute of the Exchange unified messaging (UM) Web service

By default, the URL that is stored in these objects references the NetBIOS name of the server. For example, a URL that resembles the following URL is stored:

https://NetBIOS_name.contoso.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml

This may differ from the host name that is used in the FQDN of the replacement certificate. For example, the replacement certificate may have an FQDN that resembles the following FQDN: mail.contoso.com

This issue causes a name mismatch error to occur. Therefore, you receive the security warning message when you try to connect Outlook 2007 to the mailbox

Outlook error : Your mailbox has been temporarily moved on Microsoft Exchange Server

Recently one of my customer tried opening Outlook and it thrown the following error:

During troubleshooting we noticed that the OWA works fine but problem while accessing Outlook. This happens because he still using the same profile and the mailbox was recreated some time earlier.

In this scenario, i recommended him to delete the existing profile and create a new one like (Control panel-> Mail-> Show profiles…-> remove existing profile ->Create new profile). This resolved the issue and helped him to move ahead.

Download fix : Issue with Message size in Outlook 2010 beta

With respect to my previous blog post regarding the message size increase of some e-mails sent from the Microsoft Outlook 2010 Beta, now you got fix from Outlook Product Group blog. The Office team has been hard at work building a fix for this issue, which is available immediately. If you are using the Office 2010 Beta, please take a moment to download this important fix.

Download Outlook 2010 Beta fix for 32-bit Office 2010

Download Outlook 2010 Beta fix for 64-bit Office 2010

What this fix will do? This fix prevents future messages from consuming unnecessary space, but doesn’t resize existing messages. If you reply or forward an existing message that is affected by this bug, it remains enlarged.

In the blog post, it’s nice to hear about the figures regarding the Outlook 2010 beta download/usage – “…although Office 2010 is in Beta and is not final, we are both excited and humbled by the fact that more than 2.5 million people have downloaded and used the Beta. We want to make sure you have a great experience with Office 2010…”

Bravo, way to go!!

Error : Outlook blocks access to the potentially unsafe attachments ?

Recently one of the developer sent out an email to me stating the he face ‘new’ issue with Outlook 2007, which blocks access to some of the mail’s attachments. When they try to access the attachment they get the following error message “Outlook blocked access to the following potentially unsafe attachments: []”. He also complained that the Outlook blocks the specific attachment; he cannot save, delete, open, print, or can’t work with the attachment in Outlook. For him it’s quite annoying as he is using Outlook from version 2000 onwards (2000, 2003 & 2007), but he noticed this strange behavior in 2007 and want to know that it might be a bug or new security feature with Outlook?

Later i checked regarding the same and responded him to refer the support KB which states methods that he can use if he have to open an attachment that is blocked in Outlook. Additionally, this article contains information about the kinds of attachments that Outlook blocks. Per KB’s excerpt, it’s bit clearly mentioned that “All versions of Outlook since Outlook 2000 Service Release 1 (SR1) include a security feature that blocks attachments that might put your computer at risk for viruses or other threats. Although Outlook blocks access to the attachment, the attachment still exists in the e-mail message…”.

Also guided him to check whether the mail contains the actual attachment or just a shortcut to a file in Outlook(if we right-click the original file, drag the file to the Inbox folder in Outlook, and then click Send with Shortcut), which may also prompt outlook to throw this message.

Please note: Shortcuts that have file name extensions of .lnk or .url are Level 1 e-mail attachment types and are not available to the recipient.

Hope this helps.

Fixed : Issue with Message size in Outlook 2010

Earlier one of my customer reported when he created a simple HTML e-mail using Outlook 2010 beta. It contained a hyperlink and some text with bullet lists, but the size of the message is quite big. He tried with Outlook 2007, the message size was relatively small. It’s researched by Outlook 2010 product team and yesterday we got the updated detailed blog post regarding this, stating it’s fixed in latest Outlook 2010 builds.

DevMSG – Outlook profile customization – available options

“We want to be able to have the users in our company log on to outlook without having to configure anything?

Is there a way that I could automate a profile creation  once the user opens up Outlook? 

Or is this something that will have to be done manually? 

We have around a 100 users and they are located at different locations throughout our organization spread across the country?”

 

 

Usually we get such queries to automate the custom profiles using PRF and they look for script whether this can be done or not by using MS Messaging API’s. First we don’t have any messaging API which is exposed for this – no programming dev support available for the above requirement.

But we have alternate available…

If this requirement is for Outlook 2003 then, you need to try with PRF files. Outlook 2003 can use PRF files, they are text files describing how the MAPI profile should look like. You need to check out the Office 2003 resource kit for more info

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=44ADF67C-16E9-4B3D-B6F8-2877EB647341&displaylang=en
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ork2003/HA011402841033.aspx?pid=CH011480681033

If you try with Outlook 2007 then, you need to use the Office Customization Tool to modify profile settings and create a new PRF file that includes those settings. If you have an existing PRF file then you can specify the file by using the Office Customization Tool, and the Outlook profile settings will be included in your Setup customization file.

If your earlier PRF file specifies Internet Mode Only (IMO) settings, create a new PRF file by using the Office Customization Tool, and then export the settings to a PRF file.

Check if you have the latest SP for Office 2007.

As a security measure, PRF’s can only be imported using the /importPRF switch. See http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/commandlines.htm for help using switches.

Note : /importprf prffilename:

Launches Outlook and opens/imports the defined MAPI profile (*.prf). If Outlook is already open, queues the profile to be imported on the next clean launch.

Please check these links:

Customize Outlook profiles by using an Outlook Profile (PRF) file
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179062.aspx

Apply an Outlook Profile (PRF) File to configure Outlook profiles
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178945.aspx

Create an Outlook Profile File (*.PRF)
http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/prf.htm

Importing .PRF Files Into Outlook 2007 in Vista
http://www.jasondunn.com/outlook2007-import-prf-172

Customizing Outlook Profiles by Using PRF Files
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ork2003/HA011402581033.aspx

Outlook 2003 & GPO : Removing extra line breaks in plain text messages

I tried to play around with Outlook 2003 and GPO. I thought to disable the outlook 2003 option ‘Remove extra line breaks in plain text messages’ for the client systems. I thought to do this whether we can try with any registry setting or GPO?

Later i done the same with GPO like this.

In Outlook 2003, it’s:
PART "Automatically clean up plain text messages" CHECKBOX
KEYNAME SoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftOffice11.0OutlookOptionsMail
VALUENAME AutoFormatPlainText
VALUEON NUMERIC 1
VALUEOFF NUMERIC 0

Also you can refer the KB: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/287816

Outlook UI Issue : Could not install the custom actions

Recently i run into this issue with Windows Server 2008 (x64) & Outlook 2007 SP2 (online – which had earlier Cached mode, later changed back to Online) machine. Whenever i tried to open a message or create a new one, i get this error message – “Could not install the custom actions. The object could not be found”. Later i tried to have a  look(bugging) into my machine. I found it’s because of the corrupt forms cache.

I fixed the issue like this.

1. Close Outlook.
2. Under C:Users find the folder for the user who’s experiencing the problem.
Note: Make sure under the Tools, Folder Options menu that system files are not hidden.
3. Go to AppDataLocalMicrosoftFORMS, and delete the file FRMCACHE.DAT
4. After clearing the FRMCACHE.DAT, restart Outlook.

This steps resolved the issue!! Happy Outlook troubleshooting!!