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Outlook 2003 with Office XP

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by willpd13

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Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has run a combination of Office XP and Outlook 2003. If so what kind of problems have you come across as we are being asked to implement this across three sites. I am just trying to either find justification for installing Office 2003 or at least find out what kind of issues we are going to face.

Thanks in advance for any info you can provide.

10 replies

by bfilmfan

Check SlipStick for the latest reports on any issues at http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/

by dugadugdug

Installing Outlook 2003 without Office 2003 limits Outlook functionality in the following ways:
** Users cannot use WordMail as their Outlook editor.
** Users cannot use the MailMerge feature.
** The File | Send to | Mail Recipient capability is not available.
** Minor problems can occur with the Office Assistant — for example, when one Office application turns the Assistant on, and another one turns it off.

The above information was obtained direct from MS: http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2003/three/ch6/OutA02.htm.

by schuylkill

We have several computers with Outlook 2003 and Office XP, and we have no problems (other than the gotchas that DugaDugDug mentions).

You can certainly use Word's MailMerge, but you might not be able to:
1. Start a MailMerge from within Outlook.
2. Use Outlook contacts as a data source.
3. Merge to e-mail.
But starting a MailMerge from Word to create a Word form letter document, and using, for instance, Excel as your data source, should work just fine.

There were some compelling changes of Outlook between XP (2002) and 2003, enough to make 2003 worth having over 2002. For the rest of the Office suite (Office Standard, at least), I don't find a huge difference between 2002 and 2003 - certainly not enough to invest in new licences.

I would recommend making sure that your user base (and especially management) understands the gotchas that DugaDugDug mentions BEFORE deployment, just to make sure there are no surprises. Some people can get very attached to one particular way of doing things in Office, and may not be happy with a switch. To ease the transition, you could (for instance) disable WordMail on their existing Office deployments, so they get an idea of what the new environment will be like.

by lbchief

I have found no problems with Outlook 2003 runnig on Windows XP. I do not use the mail function as I still don't trust the software. I view mail on the providers website to screen first then open mail on Netscape.

by vttimer9

Hi,
Tried using Outlook 2000 that was with Office 2000 premium but had problems first loosing contacts and then e-mails that were saved. Good thing that I had backups of both. I imported both into Outlook Express in December 2005. Now have trouble with Express after using V 7.5 Messanger and Logitech Web cam 3000. Can't get e-mail?? Microsoft is blaming Worms, Black Ice, Norton, Cable IPS Provider and anyone else that is hanging around. Good luck!
GJSL

by schuylkill

XP Home may have many faults, but I seriously doubt that Windows of any flavor would cause the data loss that you are seeing. Outlook 2000 is very stable, assuming it is fully patched, but even without patches, it would not cause these symptoms.

I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft was right on this one. I would check for malware.

Another option is filtering. I have frequently encountered users who have turned on filtering in Outlook and not been aware that they had done so. They think their e-mails are deleted, when they are just filtered out.

Good luck to you!

by jebstyle

Yes, we have this setup on a few of the computers on our network, it functions well, but you lose the ability to edit with microsoft word while in outlook, and so a big hit is that spellcheck won't work, other than that we have no issues

-Jeremiah

by schuylkill

There is an Outlook spellcheck that can be configured to check the document after you hit "Send". It is not as convenient as Word (or Wordmail) checking the document as you type, but spellchecking can be done.

by fadbel

I don't know why you guys are having problems with Spellcheck in Outlook. Mine works on-the-fly, self-correcting as I type (using Word 2003 as my editor).
Must be another setting, or more specifically, a non-setting.
The only problem I see is when someone replies to SOME of my mail some of the punctuation in my original message is replaced by question marks (?). Since that only shows up with certain replies, I have to assume that their remote server is the culpert here.

by schuylkill

This thread concerns a situation where Outlook 2003 and Office XP is installed - in other words, the version of Word is 2002, not 2003. In this case, Word cannot function as the e-mail editor.

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