Microsoft Outlook 2003 [OLD VERSION]

I am sorry to say that I did not like the new interface at all. It's overwhelming and crowded. The spam filter options are only slightly different from the previous version. And when I send out an e-mail, Norton Anti-virus takes five times longer to start scanning the message, sometimes resulting in a failed outgoing message.

So I went back to Outlook 2000, and of course I'm now stuck with 2003 and can't return it. Maybe I'll try it some other day.


Nice improvement over 2002, more usefull features   October 30, 2003
 6 out of 7 found this review helpful

While I was initially not going to upgrade, I'm really happy that I did. Installation went great, and I beleive it did due to my having had all the latest upgrades and additions to WinXP on board my machine. (...) Anyway the new mail management features are useful, and the new look and layout of the interface is more intuative. A good upgrade all in all, and I recommend it to others.


THE ANTI-SPAM FILTERS ARE WORTH IT   October 29, 2003
 8 out of 9 found this review helpful

The spam filters that come with Outlook are neat, they are doing (as yet) an amazing job of filtering out junk and not flagging legit mail by accident. MS has obviously had a bit of inspiration to go with, products/plug-ins like Spam Inspector (Giant Company) or Mailshell have been around for a while now.

However, the new Business Contact Manager is a mess, and the supposed new friendly "look and feel" lasted me no more than 2 days. Had to switch back to what my email typically looks like. Not because I am averse to change, but it is just so much more efficient. If I wanted needless good looks, I'd go with the smilie-ridden "Incredimail."

My 20 yen: if you already use Outlook, just buy the upgrade and save yourself the rest.


This is a terrible product   October 23, 2003
 21 out of 28 found this review helpful

I ordered Outlook 2003 with great confidence. However, I was unable to load it on my Dell running Windows 2000 with 256 MB of ram, even after reinstalling it several times. Worse, when I removed it and tried to reinstall Outlook 2002 (from the Office XP suite), that would no longer work. After spending several hours with technical support over several days and being bumped up to a supervisor, I was finally able to revert to my older Outlook. The supervisor told me that other staff had told him that Outlook 2003 had problems as a stand-alone product because it shares code with Word 2003. Now they tell us..... I'm sure it's a great product if it can be made to work, but I was unable to make it work.


E-mail is once again an enjoyable EXPERIENCE!   October 23, 2003
 10 out of 10 found this review helpful

Outlook, is so revamped, this alone is a worthy upgrade. Three panes in Outlook 2003 make e-mail an enjoyable experience. The Mail Pane holds all of the necessary tools found in prior versions of Outlook such as the Outlook Bar, and the different folders such as inbox, calendar, etc. The second pane gives an expanded view of the different items listed in the Mail Pane, like your incoming mail, contacts and calendar, which makes reading these information resources easier on the eye and productive by providing a better view. Reading your e-mail in the third pane (Preview Pane), the user views the message in portrait layout, more content is seen compared to prior versions. Its even better to view e-mails with "Clear Type" turned on for Windows XP users. Other features such as improved Virus and Spam protection makes Outlook 2003 a great upgrade. Outlook is not placed on the desktop by default, it can also be minimized to the system tray in Windows, for users connected to an Exchange Server, this displays all the network settings available.