Microsoft Outlook 2003 [OLD VERSION]

The upgrade from Outlook 2002 was seamless. Even my RSS News Feed Reader, NewsGator, integrated seamlessly with the new 2003 version without having to do anything.

The one bad thing about having a news feed reader is that when I go to unread messages, I no longer get my unread messages, because the first time I went there I had over 65536 messages that were old news and it took about an half an hour to count up all of the messages. I was not able to mark all of these messages as read (right click, "mark all read"), and even after I marked each folder as read manually, my unread mail folder is still stuck, so I removed it from my favorites list.

I like the spam filters, but there is no way to mark a spam message as being read and just leave it in the spam folder. You have to delete the message before the message count goes down.

About certain file extensions being blocked. If you really need to send a certain file extension that is blocked, you can rename the file to use another extension. For example rename program.exe to program.exeREMOVE. You may have to ask some people to rename their files before sending them, but it's better than getting a virus that is newly out in the wild because you thought it was trustable.

Also, I didn't see any ads in the program, so I'm not sure why someone would say it's adware.

The lack of integration with Word 2002 is not a problem since when word starts up as the email editor in Outlook 2002, it takes too long anyhow. I prefer the standard editor and just tell it to check spelling before sending instead of getting spelling tips while I type. You can still format a document using fonts and bold/italics with the standard editor. I never found any extra utility in having Word as the editor.

2003 version has a much better rules wizard. Right click on an email and select "create rule", and you get a cleaned up version of 2002's email rules interface that is easier to use.

The one annoying thing about Outlook 2003 is that whenever a message comes in, it appears above the icon tray on the task bar, and whenever it prepares a view and takes too long, a pop up dialog ala windows update says "Outlook is Preparing the Requested View". Since I don't like the cartoon dialog boxes popping up from my tray constantly I find this to be extra annoying.

Is it worth the price? Probably not, compared to other products, but on the other hand, it is better than Outlook 2002 and probably worth upgrading.


Crippleware, Adware, all at no additional charge   March 4, 2004
 15 out of 19 found this review helpful

Outlook 2003 is certainly prettier than past versions, but I find the interface cluttered and harder to use. For example, in Outlook 2000 you could enter a Contact's nickname in the 'To' line, but this doesn't work with this 'upgrade'. Also annoying is the Microsoft Online billboard that appears to the right of the screen, masquerading as a help bar. It does include help functionality, but it also includes 'push' topics that tout Microsoft's other products.

My biggest gripe is that Outlook 2003 added a new nanny feature that prevent users from receiving email attachments with dozens of extensions, including Access and Foxpro database files. If you're using Outlook in standalone mode, you can't override this setting. You can't save the file. You can't forward it. You're just out of luck. Also, if another user tries to email you a link to a website (using the 'send as link' function in IE), Outlook blocks the resulting .url file.

Of course there are clunky workarounds for all these deficiencies, assuming you can cajole the sender into putting up with the hassle of jumping through hoops made necessary by your new mail client. Security is important, but crippling your software rather than designing it correctly in the first place sounds more like a shareware workaround than the latest product of a $270 billion company.

I got Office 2003 on my new PC, but if I could, I would go back to Outlook 2000 in a heartbeat. If you're thinking of upgrading, don't!


Not goof for multiple e-mail accounts   December 26, 2003
 7 out of 8 found this review helpful

I do like the layout and the fact that it will give you a short pop-up in the corner telling you when you get e-mail and who it is from (no matter what program you are running on top) is a great feature, but I can't get it to run multiple e-mail accounts simultaniously.

With Outlook 97 and 2000, we could set up our exchange server and internet mail accounts to run together, but with 2003 you have to create two different profiles, one for each e-mail account. In 97 and 2000, you had to set the internet mail account as the default account and then it would send/receive those first and then your exchange account. In 2003, if you do that, your exchange account will not send/receive. However, if you set the exchange account as default, the exchange account will work, but your internet will not. You can receive them and even reply to them, but if you try to create a new outside e-mail, it will always return undeliverable. What is odd about this is that you can receive outside e-mails and even respond to them!

Microsoft has no solution to this problem yet. My advice is that if you use both exchange and internet e-mail simultaniously, then hold off on this until they resolve the issue.


Outlook 2003   December 9, 2003
 2 out of 5 found this review helpful

I use Outlook a lot and I have to admit that the new interface is a great step forward. We run an Exchange server here and the functionality is quite seamless. If you're a crusty Outlook user, you may not like some of the changes that the folks from Redmond made, but overall, I think it is a better tool than its predecessor and makes more information simultaneously available.