The Outlook on Outlook 2007
The UI still has a ways to go before I’ll be completely satisifed, but Outlook 2007 is shaping up to be a smart upgrade from Outlook 2000 as an Internet PIM. I was proven 100% correct on the suckitude of Oulook 2002 and 2003, as the 2007 team has de-merged Exchange and Internet environments (as it was in Outook 2000). From there, I’m able to move forward and consider Outlook 2007 as a viable upgrade.
I was cautiously optimistic when I watched Hank Leukart’s Outlook 2007 Calendar sneak preview. Separately, Jessica Arnold give Scoble a more general Outlook 2007 overview before Beta 2 was released. Both videos are worth watching if you work with Outlook on any level, if only to discover what’s changed. Most concerning to me, however, is how each Microsoft interviewee dismissed two issues which both interviewers raised independent of one another!
- You can’t (yet) publish your calendar to your own server from within Outlook. Instead, you’re “forced” to push it to Office Online. It’s not like Microsoft can’t let you put your data elsewhere – it’s just that Office doesn’t make a lot of money, so it has to make up for lost revenue elsewhere. Whatever.
- You can’t easily copy an item from a remote calendar to your own. Instead, you have to manually drag and drop from one time slot to another – introducing potential PEBKAC mousing errors. Moreover, if you try to set a reminder on a remote calendar – you’re told that you can’t do it, and asked: “Is that okay?” No solution is actually provided by the error dialog.
I’m happy to be able to share calendars easily from within Outlook 2007, but I’ll miss the being able to edit external calendars like I can do with Net Folders in Outlook 2000. It’s certainly looking like I’ll migrate to the new version once it’s gone gold. My biggest beefs with Outlook 2007 so far?
- Fonts. Tahoma needs to be eliminated from Office, wholesale. Segoe UI is the new standard – even though the Windows Vista team didn’t get that memo.
- Corners. Around some elements, like Calendar entries, I see rounded corners. Surrounding other elements, like informational “bubbles” inside email messages, I see sharp corners. One or the other, folks – not both.
- Flashing. Too often, I’ll watch a window pane redraw itself. This is painfully obvious when you switch views in Outlook, or when you try to resize a pane. My video card has much more than 4MB of RAM, ya know? I’m trying to use Outlook, not a bowl of Jell-o.
- Headers. Why can’t I customize the message header? I don’t want a gigantic font for the message subject and sender in the preview pane. I want it to look like it does when I open a message in a separate window. Moreover, the headers in the preview pane for the calendar are rendered differently, too. Make up your mind!
- Toolbars. Are you using the ribbon, or what? I realize that the Outlook client is fundamentally different than Word, PowerPoint, and Excel – but you just can’t keep those old toolbars in place. And please, for God’s sake, don’t employ the craptacular Windows Vista styled toolbars?!
What disturbs me most is how Outlook 2007 – a single program – looks and acts differently throughout. Much like the whole of Windows Vista, Outlook 2007 feels somewhat schizophrenic. Spacing is haphazard, controls are varied, and elements (again) are inexcusabily dissimilar. That said, Outlook 2007 seems to be faster than 2002 and 2003. We’ll see what they do with the UI in these remaining months.
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18 Comments
Kyle's Cove
September 10th, 2006
at 2:50pm
Microsoft recently opened their beta 2 version of Microsoft Office 2007. If your interested in trying the newest Office release for free, you can order a compact disc or download it here. Chris Pirillo has posted his thoughts on Microsoft Outlook 2007. If you’ve beta tested Microsoft Office 2007, I would love to hear your thoughts!
MS Office Beta Notes
September 5th, 2006
at 7:16pm
[...] The interesting thing about this post from Chris is that he has steered clear of Outlook 2002 and 2003 because they were too slow, but he sees a speed increase in 2007. I haven’t seen the same thing. Of course, I’m using it on a laptop, so my performance may not be your performance. [...]
Gary Shell
September 5th, 2006
at 10:34pm
Does anyone know if this return to the Outlook 2000 model of separating Exchange and POP3 will mean I can’t access both types of accounts from the same interface like I can now in Outlook 2003? I have an exchange account and a pop3 account that Outlook checks for inbound (or outbound) email each time I click “Send and Receive”. I do not want to give up that sort of functionality!
Damon
September 5th, 2006
at 10:56pm
I used to be somewhat of a Thunderbird evangelist, converting all the computers in the office to TB and such. That was until I tried Outlook 2007.
You are correct about some little bugs in the system, and I sure hope M$ has them worked out with the production release.
One thing I LOVE is the RSS integration with IE7. (Oh yeah, I used to use Firefox religiously, but stopped when I used IE7 because of the RSS feed integration – it rocks!) I love the fact that if I stumble across a website I love w/ RSS feeds – 2 clicks and I have the feed not only in my IE favorites, but also in Outlook. I used to use TB for RSS reading, but its TOO EASY now with Outlook. Who would have thought – M$ did something better than the Mozilla team!
iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007 (The Show On 10)
September 8th, 2006
at 9:44am
[...] Tags: office, software Downloads: iPod, WMV, WMV (High) Reply | Link | digg | del.icio.usComments ( 4 total ) page 1 of 1 Refresh The Outlook on Outlook 2007 ~ ChrisPirilloPosted Sep 5th at 3:31 PM by systemPingback from The Outlook on Outlook 2007 ~ Chris Pirilloedited Sep 5th at 4:19 PM Reply | Link Re: iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007Posted Sep 5th at 10:39 AM by tweblogCool. IMO, still not simple enough, and still not user-friendly enough. Too many features. Not enough, “It just works.” I will almost always want more simplification. Reply | Link Re: iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007Posted Sep 4th at 2:51 AM by lockergnomeThis demo was awesome – I want to see more like it. That, and I need to make sure that Hank sees my list of Outlook issues: http://chris.pirillo.com/2006/05/26/65-reasons-why-outlook-2007-will-suck/ Hank needs to see my post before RC1. ;) Reply | Link iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007 at CalendarReviewPosted Aug 29th at 5:44 AM by systemPingback from iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007 at CalendarReviewedited Aug 29th at 7:11 AM Reply | Link page 1 of 1 Refresh Add ThreadSubject:Message: [...]
Hank Leukart
September 8th, 2006
at 9:50am
Hi Chris,
In reference to your comment about calendar publishing, I made a mistake in the video that you watched. In the shipping version of Outlook 2007, it WILL be possible to publish your calendar to your OWN server if you desire. You can publish either to Office Online or a server of your choosing.
In reference to your comment about calendar drag-drop, that’s an issue that we hope to work out in the future; nevertheless, there is a workaround. If you drag an item to the calendar folder in the Navigation Pane, it will copy without the risk of accidentally changing the time of the appointment.
I hope that helps!
-Hank Leukart
Michael Affronti
September 8th, 2006
at 1:24pm
Hi Chris,
I’ll piggyback on what Hank said in that we *do* let you publish to custom WebDav servers from Outlok 2007. There’s more on my blog in this post: http://blogs.msdn.com/michael_affronti/archive/2006/06/06/619756.aspx.
Thanks! Let me know if you have any questions.
iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007 (The Show On 10)
September 9th, 2006
at 8:43am
[...] Entry DetailsWho: Hank LeukartWhat: office, softwareWhere: MS CampusViews: 3,496 iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007Posted Aug 28th at 8:19 AM by Duncan 43:33 Outlook 2007 brings along a wide variety of new calendar features, so I sat down with Hank Leukart from the Office team to go over what’s new and interesting, including improvement Sharepoint integration, better sharing of Calendars with folks outside your organization and (my personal favorite) support for the standard iCal calendar format. Tags: office, software Downloads: iPod, WMV, WMV (High) Reply | Link | digg | del.icio.usComments ( 4 total ) page 1 of 1 Refresh The Outlook on Outlook 2007 ~ Chris PirilloPosted Sep 5th at 3:31 PM by systemPingback from The Outlook on Outlook 2007 ~ Chris Pirilloedited Sep 5th at 4:19 PM Reply | Link Re: iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007Posted Sep 5th at 10:39 AM by tweblogCool. IMO, still not simple enough, and still not user-friendly enough. Too many features. Not enough, “It just works.” I will almost always want more simplification. Reply | Link Re: iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007Posted Sep 4th at 2:51 AM by lockergnomeThis demo was awesome – I want to see more like it. That, and I need to make sure that Hank sees my list of Outlook issues: http://chris.pirillo.com/2006/05/26/65-reasons-why-outlook-2007-will-suck/ Hank needs to see my post before RC1. ;) Reply | Link iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007 at CalendarReviewPosted Aug 29th at 5:44 AM by systemPingback from iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007 at CalendarReviewedited Aug 29th at 7:11 AM Reply | Link page 1 of 1 Refresh Add ThreadSubject:Message: [...]
Duncan Mackenzie
September 19th, 2006
at 11:09am
I’m glad that Hank and Michael helped clear up the Calendar publishing question a bit, but I’m a little unhappy with the solution presented. I don’t want to publish via WebDAV, I want http://FTP... nice standard http://FTP... my host may or may not support WebDAV, I’m not sure, but I know that my host and your host and Fred’s host all support FTP.
Oh well, maybe I can write an add-in to do “Publish My Calendar to FTP”
Greg
October 23rd, 2006
at 7:46am
I’ve used 2000, 2003, 2007 beta 2, and now the “technical refresh” version.
Outlook as always been guilty of getting slower as your .PST file grows. Even with auto-archiving this has always been the case.
I find it frustrating because I have a P4 3.0GHz and 1GB of Ram and minimizing and maximizing Outlook is painfully slow. I did some cleaning house and got my .PST file from 140MB down to 40MB, it helped some.
However, when you bring outlook up from the taskbar, it has to re-draw all the pretty menus and animiations. I JUST WANT TO CHECK MY EMAIL and LOOK AT A CALENDAR!
It’s obivious they are writing the code for Office 2007 for use on a dual core processor. It’s a shame, because I love the ease, usablilty and features of Office 2007, just hate that it’s slower than my grandma on the interstate.
Maybe it’s time to switch to Thunderbird??
Dale Birmingham
November 11th, 2006
at 11:10am
Outlook 2000 is number one in my opinion. I own a computer company and we use both 2000 and 2003 at the moment. 2000 allows us to quickly see the calendar as a year at once, it has the outlook bars that 2003 and 2007 cannot deliver, it has my foler list for easy and quick access. I can use 2000 faster than 2003 as my clicks are fewer on 2000 than 2003, the company’s calendar and quick launch is customizable. 2003 and 2007 are not. So if 2007 is faster so what, I can fly on 2000 much faster than 2007, Microsoft made a big mistake with Vista and the “new” office 2007. I will not let go of Outlook 2000 as it is faster because of me. Sometimes new stuff isn’t better than the old stuff.
Dale.
Vinnie Venugopal
December 2nd, 2006
at 7:16am
Let’s be real, it’s BETA. Try loosing your Outlook 2007 favorite folders from your navigation pane and see if you can get it back without reinstalling Outlook 2007 BETA. This seems to happen when opening certain ASP.NET pages in IE 7, not sure why they are realated but might be something MS want to look into!
Jeff Allan
February 7th, 2007
at 5:49pm
Love it keep it up please
iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007 | Duncan Mackenzie | Channel 10
February 18th, 2007
at 3:40pm
[...] ArchivesDecember 2006 (3)November 2006 (15)October 2006 (9)September 2006 (5)August 2006 (4)July 2006 (1)June 2006 (1)May 2006 (1)April 2006 (1)March 2006 (2) iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007Posted by Duncan on Aug 28th, 2006 at 11:19 AM 43:33 Outlook 2007 brings along a wide variety of new calendar features, so I sat down with Hank Leukart from the Office team to go over what’s new and interesting, including improvement Sharepoint integration, better sharing of Calendars with folks outside your organization and (my personal favorite) support for the standard iCal calendar format. Tags: office, software Downloads: iPod, WMV, WMV (High) Reply | Link | digg | del.icio.usComments ( 3 total ) page 1 of 1 The Outlook on Outlook 2007 ~ Chris PirilloTrackback posted Sep 5th, 2006 at 6:31 PMPingback from The Outlook on Outlook 2007 ~ Chris Pirilloedited Sep 5th, 2006 at 7:19 PM Reply | Link Re: iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007Posted Sep 4th, 2006 at 5:51 AM by lockergnomeThis demo was awesome – I want to see more like it. That, and I need to make sure that Hank sees my list of Outlook issues: http://chris.pirillo.com/2006/05/26/65-reasons-why-outlook-2007-will-suck/ Hank needs to see my post before RC1. ;) Reply | Link iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007 at CalendarReviewTrackback posted Aug 29th, 2006 at 8:44 AMPingback from iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007 at CalendarReviewedited Aug 29th, 2006 at 10:11 AM Reply | Link page 1 of 1 Add ThreadSubject:Message: [...]
office 2007 and vodafone pop mail - boards.ie
March 4th, 2007
at 6:38am
[...] Originally Posted by tom dunne What exactly is a source network trace? Are you talking about a trace route? Sure throw up a few links there and we will have a look. no not a trace route…. what i was saying was sources 1. network trace 2. google search attached below google searches http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=…007+pop3&meta= http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/win…7-thumbs-down/ http://www.itwriting.com/blog/?p=54 http://chris.pirillo.com/2006/09/05/…-outlook-2007/ http://groups.google.ie/group/micros…8fc13f44c60be2 aparently outlook 07 handles pop3 slightly differently than previous versions Last edited by what_car : 01-03-2007 at 17:49. [...]
iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007 | Duncan Mackenzie | Channel 10
March 25th, 2007
at 7:56pm
[...] ArchivesFebruary 2007 (1)December 2006 (3)November 2006 (15)October 2006 (9)September 2006 (5)August 2006 (4)July 2006 (1)June 2006 (1)May 2006 (1)April 2006 (1)March 2006 (2) iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007Posted by Duncan on Aug 28th, 2006 at 11:19 AM 43:33 Outlook 2007 brings along a wide variety of new calendar features, so I sat down with Hank Leukart from the Office team to go over what’s new and interesting, including improvement Sharepoint integration, better sharing of Calendars with folks outside your organization and (my personal favorite) support for the standard iCal calendar format. Tags: office, software Downloads: iPod, WMV, WMV (High) Reply | Link | digg | del.icio.usComments ( 3 total ) page 1 of 1 The Outlook on Outlook 2007 ~ Chris PirilloTrackback posted Sep 5th, 2006 at 6:31 PMPingback from The Outlook on Outlook 2007 ~ Chris Pirilloedited Sep 5th, 2006 at 7:19 PM Reply | Link Re: iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007Posted Sep 4th, 2006 at 5:51 AM by lockergnomeThis demo was awesome – I want to see more like it. That, and I need to make sure that Hank sees my list of Outlook issues: http://chris.pirillo.com/2006/05/26/65-reasons-why-outlook-2007-will-suck/ Hank needs to see my post before RC1. ;) Reply | Link iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007 at CalendarReviewTrackback posted Aug 29th, 2006 at 8:44 AMPingback from iCal support and other Calendar features in Outlook 2007 at CalendarReviewedited Aug 29th, 2006 at 10:11 AM Reply | Link page 1 of 1 Add ThreadSubject:Message: [...]
eric warner
April 3rd, 2007
at 3:54am
How the heck does some get all their email from hotmail server via Outlook Express onto Vista Windows Mail. PLease help…been reading for days and on the phone with tech support. NEW Vista user.
John Tweedell
January 14th, 2009
at 8:18am
Unblock picture downloads for all messages
On the Tools menu, click Trust Center, and then click Automatic Download.
Clear the Don’t download pictures automatically in HTML e-mail messages
The above quote taken from outlook 2007 Help. Done it but still do not get images downloaded. Can anyone help?