Customer Reviews

Microsoft Outlook 2010

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

At first I thought I liked Outlook 2010. But then I wrote some emails and found that the "Check spelling as you type" function did not work. I went to the editor options and found this function was grayed-out. Then I went to the Microsoft Discussion forum called Microsoft Answers. Many people had the same complaint about the spell check. A Microsoft MVP gave us a curt answer to our problem: "You have to buy the office suite in order for the spell check to work." Neat!

I installed Outlook 2010 on a new Asus laptop running Windows 7 home premium and had no problems or glitches. Windows Live Mail was set up on the laptop but it would not import and export to Outlook 2003 that is installed on an older desktop. Outlook 2010 imports and exports to Outlook 2003 seamlessly. The only problem I experienced was setting up a new e-mail account. Outlook 2010 gives you the option to set it up automatically or manually. I tried automatic and I did not like the way it was set up, so I deleted it and installed manually.

It is now well documented that Outlook 2010 no longer tracks tasks and journal entries under the activities section of a contact. This is one of the greatest CRM features available in earlier verision of Outlook, allowing users to track phone calls, meetings, tasks, emails, etc., in one window pane for every contact. Whether this a known bug they are going to fix or a change by design that they are not going to fix is completely unclear. The responses from Microsoft are inconsistent according to those who have logged help requests and posted their experiences on forums. Is the elimination of CRM like features in Outlook 2010 a cynical ploy to convert/force users to Microsoft's Dynamics CRM 2011 (at $44/user/month)?

Regardless, the feature doesn't work, even though books like Microsoft Outlook 2010 Inside Out provide step by step instructions for using this non-existent functionality (there is a detailed section in the book called "Connecting journal activities to individual contacts" teaching us how to connect journal activities to contacts. Figure 22-11 provides a beautiful diagram of the journal entry, having been associated with the contact, now dazzlingly displayed in the contact's activities section, as if somewhere, somehow, this functionality really did exist. The section ends with "this is just one more way outlook 2010 keeps all your information interconnected"). But its not true, the information is not connected, and if you had the information connected in 2007, it is now disconnected and years of compiling and tracking interactions with your contacts (who might be your costumers, clients, or suppliers) is lost.. For many users, it makes Office 2010 a definite downgrade from 2007.

I have been using outlook since inception. This is the worst version ever. They do not upgrade the database engine and only play with the GUI. It keeps locking up. Rebooting itself. And on top of it all, costs arm and a leg. All the error messages sent to MS go into some ditch and never remedied. It is a shame MS products have lost their cutting edge after BG. I have ditched Office all together now and I am using free on-line software from others, which at least do not crash my system. Don't Office people talk to Windows people. They are in the same building. Avoid.

Having used Outlook for many years, I selected Outlook 2010 for my new Windows 7 computer. The features that I loved in the older versions of Outlook that I used on XP and Vista were gone and replaced with strange features like the "ribbon." Outlook 2010 is not worth the money and the learning curve is too steep. Microsoft should have followed the old adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

First of all, as usual Amazon did a great job of delivering the correct product, and on time. But that' been about the ONLY thing that has been satisfactory about my experience so far. I've only been using Outlook for a few days so far, but that's enough to know I really don't like it at all.

My last 2 computers (which I still have) run XP and Outlook Exress. I've used OE for many years now, and know my way around it quite well, including the Advanced settings. I never needed to buy any sort of tutorials to learn how to use it; it's very intuitive. NOT the case with Outlook. Let's begin at the behinning:

My new computer (Dell 15r laptop) came preloaded with Windows 7. While different from XP, I'm getting comfortable with it, as it's pretty user friendly; I liked XP just fine, but I can get comfortable with Win 7. Along with the new computer, I also bought the Belkin data transfer system. It did an excellent job of transferring my documents, music, web favorites, etc. I assumed that, even though I'd been running Outlook Express and not Outlook, that it would also transfer my email settings and Address Book from my old computer to the new one, in other words, from my OE computer to the new one running Outlook.

IT DID NOT.

I'm sure a software write could have accomplished allowing Outlook and Outlook Express to communicate with each other during a data transfer (after all, they're both from the same company), and it should have been reasonable for them to assume that a LOT of people would be transitioning from OE to Outlook, wouldn't it? It's almost as if the designers had never heard of OE, used it, or reviewed its best features, as the products are so dissimilar. Here are just a few examples; I have more complaints, but this will give you an idea:

Since the data transfer didn't transfer from Outlook Express, I had to go in and manually set all the email parameters myself. Fortunately, I know how to do this, but it shouldn' have been necessary. I had to set the SSL, authentication, and port settings, etc. It really would have been nice if Microsoft would have designed an interface for the data transfer that would have done this automatially, but they didn't. And I know there are a lot of people out there who DON'T know how to access and modify these settings and if you can't, you obviously will get NO email. Thanks, Microsoft!

Let's say you want to do something simple, like schedule how often you want to check for new messages. Used to be two clicks, and was with the rest of the settings, accessible from the Tools on the home pane. Now, it's buried inside the file tab, and is now an "Advanced" setting? At first, I also thought it only gave the option of both sending and receiving, but I finally found the setting so I can just receive; they had that buried too.

Each account you set up comes with its own Deleted Items, Drafts, and Sent Items folder. Very cumbersome, in my opinion. And in my case since I have a Dell, another frustration. Mine came with McAffee, and for each sub-folder you create, McAffee creates a subfolder named "McAffee Anti-Spam". All your emails go into the respective folder for each account / folder you have. Problem is, if the folders are collapsed, when you receive emails, there is no numerical notification next to the folder to let you know something came in. And if you DO expand the folders, they won't all fit in the pane without having to scroll down. Whether collapsed or expanded, you can easily miss something. And if you eliminate the subfolder, you get NO mail.

I could go on, but you get the idea. The changes made to Outlook were made with no regard to someone's familiarity with Outlook Express, and have not made the program more user-friendly or convenient. But if you're gonna stay with a Microsoft product, you simply have no choice, as Win 7 won't support Outlook Express. I don't know about you, but I prefer making my own decisions insted of having them made for me.

Others may disagree with me, but I do not like Outlook 2010. I will learn how to use it, but I will NEVER prefer it to good ol' Outlook Express.

I'd like to meet the genius who designed this new version, AND decided we can no longer use Outlook Express. Believe me, if I could install OE into my new Win 7 OS, I would. I'm even tempted to dump Win 7 and load XP in my new computer, but then, I know it won't be long before Microsoft quits supporting XP with updates and patches, so whaddayagonnado?

I purchased the latest version of Outlook 2010 since my IT guys said it would work properly with IMAP unlike the 2007 version of Outlook. I installed the new version which worked ok except when some emails with graphics were opened. The program would crash and had to be restarted.

I search the Microsoft web site (very accurate, totally useless) and didn't find anything. A Google search revealed that others have had the same problem and it appears that Microsoft is pointing the finger at a 3rd party software provider (Adobe, I suspect). From what I read, Microsoft has no interest in fixing the problem since it is the other company's fault.

I removed Outlook 2010 and re-installed 2007. My $130+ investment is gathering dust on the shelf.

Alright, I'm sure someone is going to jump down my throat and correct me on this (maybe) but I've been using this since Outlook 2010 came out. I bought it with a Dell Studio 1569 Laptop that I purchased last June (which I still love by the way).

I'll get the good out of the way - the Calendar is solid, the to do lists are fine, and the contact manager works as expected, not really a big difference that I can tell from Office 2007 - it does what I need it to do.

Quick background: I use Office 2007 on my desktop PC, and I run a business from home (a jewelry/retail website) that I do 90% of the customer service for. I receive and answer 100's of emails every day. I need to manage multiple email accounts.

So what's the problem? There is no native combined inbox view. Office 2007 has it, and for some reason, Office 2011 on the Mac has it. I've played with this thing for the better part of a year, tried setting up customs folders/rules to catch all the emails, but for whatever reason it degrades over time and is harder to manage. I have no idea what Microsoft was thinking. The reason, for me, that it's a pain in the butt is a customers order information will often be emailed to a separate email account than where they might send an email asking for a change to be made to the order. This really makes the search function almost worthless. On the combined inbox view I can start typing their email address or last name, or an item number in and up pops the related emails, no matter what inbox they are laying in, for me to quickly access the customers information. With no combined inbox this process just isn't as easy - short of having all of the emails forward into one email account and only use that account on Outlook (which is what I did for awhile).. What a step backwards!

So anyways, I finally got sick of it and uninstalled this on my laptop, and I installed Outlook 2007. Yea, it works like a charm... Only took me about a year to do it. If you ever do downgrade to Outlook 2007, make sure you go to the windows control panel, mail 32 bit (easiest way to find this is just type it in the 'search control panel' box), profiles, and DELETE the outlook profile before you install it, your life will be much easier : I also deleted all the data files from Outlook 2010 as well on my second install attempt, it made for a cleaner install, then I just re-downloaded everything from the email servers.

2 STARS, because everything else is fine (at least for my use), but the whole point of an email management program I thought was to make managing my email EASIER. If I wanted to log in to each account separately to clumsily search for an email, I would have just stuck with the web interface. If I was only rating the mail aspect of this, it would be -10 STARS.

BTW you can find office 2007 for under $100, includes Outlook, etc.

This program has problems syncing with mobile devices. Calendar appointments disappear in the transfer. If you do serious business you don't want to depend on this program. Earlier versions worked better. Stay with them. Outlook 2007 works much better.

Bottom-Line: Microsoft continues to improve its premiere messaging application; for me "Outlook 2010" is (still) the contact management program for me and remains the best on the market, period!

So, I have been working with Microsoft Office 2010 for the last seven or so months on three different computer platforms all running Windows 7 Enterprise Edition. I use "Microsoft Outlook 2010" every day; it is one of the first applications I open in the morning and one of the last I close in the evening, so I am very familiar with the program and it functionality.

"Outlook 2010" (the software can also be purchased separately), is the (Office) suite's business and personal communications/collaboration client for connecting to Microsoft Exchange, or external Internet based POP3 email providers like Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Gmail, etc.

But, "Outlook 2010" is also a very robust (stand-a-lone) contact manager allowing one to schedule meeting, create a To-Do Task List, keep track of Contacts, create Notes, and keep a running record of documents and emails sent and or received via Outlook Journal. From very humble beginnings, Microsoft has turned Outlook into the must-have Contact Manager.

The first thing you'll notice about "Outlook 2010" is the new multi-colored splash screen on startup. This new yellow, orange, and red splash screen is common across all other Office Products as well. But the (rounded) splash screen also relays information about what the product is doing during the load process; not that anyone will understand the verbiage. But, for techies like me it looks cool!

Once "Outlook 2010" starts you will be greeted with a much smoother user interface with much smoother fonts and edges, as well as a more subtle color theme and an operational ribbon bar transplanted from the rest of the Office Suite. Anyone familiar with Office 2007 will be right at home with the new Ribbon motif in Outlook 2010; Outlook 2007 was not so adorned.

All of the menu items in previous versions of Outlook have been moved to the Ribbon along with many new tasks/options. All of these changes blend in nicely with Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 operating system, but might take some getting used to for those not familiar with the Office Ribbon Bar.

Overall the layout of the interface remains unchanged from that of Outlook 2007. However, the Inbox and the Sent Items Folder has been moved to the top of the folder list in the Folder List View, while there is more space between the folders. User created mailbox folders are now pushed down below the Default Outlook Folders. Nothing too radical, but the new Inbox location took me a little getting used to.

What Else is New?

64-Bit Performance: Perhaps the largest change to Office 2010 suite is the availability of both a 32-bit and 64-bit version of the suite. This of course translates to better memory and processor usage, resulting in better performance throughout.

Conversation view has been added to Outlook 2010 much to the delight of fans of third-party email clients like Gmail. If an e-mail comes in that's a reply to the original message, any related messages to that particular subject line are displayed with it. The default view is collapsed, but all of the messages in the conversation string, including the original sent mail and replies, can be displayed with a simple click of the mouse.

Forwarding a message as an attachment or Text Message now has a home in the form of a designated button(s) on the (Respond) section on the Home tab of the ribbon bar. Click on the button and a new email comes up with the selected message already as an attachment. Note: this feature will also work with multiple messages. Note: in order to send a Text Message, you'll need to set up the service first.

Quick Steps is a fantastic new feature in "Outlook 2010." Outlook Quick Steps--accessible via the Quick Steps section of the Home Ribbon bar--allow you to create shortcuts for various actions like automatically replying to a selected message and deleting, and or filing the original, or forwarding a message to a specific person, group of people, or even department. And quick steps can even be assigned keyboard shortcuts. Outlook 2010 includes a number of default Quick Steps, and new ones are very easy to create.

Voice-Mail Integration is now offered with Outlook 2010 and is used in conjunction with Exchange 2010 and Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2. This feature creates an easy to use multi-media interface for playing back voice-mail messages.

HTML Rending Issues

Microsoft first started using Word to render the HTML content in Outlook 2007.
Microsoft has kept MS Word as the rending engine for creating HTML e-mails much to the chagrin of a large number of users who complain that Microsoft should a more industry standard engine. MS Word, they say, does an incomplete job of rendering HTML graphics and text and a highly caustic campaign has been started via a website called Fixoutlook.org and is being supported by the Email Standards Project. The campaign claims to have more than 19,000 participants.

But Microsoft recently reaffirmed that is plans to move ahead with Word as the rendering engine in "Outlook 2010." This was confirmed in a recent BLOG post by William Kennedy, Microsoft's Corporate VP for Office Communications and Forms.

Kennedy wrote "Word has always done a great job of displaying the HTML which is commonly found in e-mails around the world. For e-mail viewing, Word also provides security benefits that are not available in a browser. Word cannot run web script or other active content that may threaten the security and safety of our customers."

He went on to state: "the 'Email Standards Project' does not represent a sanctioned standard or an industry consensus in this area. Should such a consensus arise, we will of course work with other e-mail vendors to provide rich support in our products."

Personally, I have never had a problem creating or displaying HTML messages in Outlook 2007, nor have I had an issue with Outlook 2010 thus far, so I cannot relate.

Enough said.

My Thoughts

"Outlook 2010" as a standalone application does not represent a huge a huge leap forward in the areas of contact management, Email communications, or scheduling. But, when integrated with MS Exchange 2010 and MS OCS 2007, the program offers a wealth of new functionality in an enterprise setting. Although the interface may look the same as Outlook 2007, this façade is somewhat deceptive, because underneath the skin lies a swift new program able to speak in 32, or 64-Bit computing.

However, despite the robust enterprise pedigree Outlook 2010 is perfectly fine for the standalone user, and or small office setting utilizing POP3 or HTML based mail. The ability to install and run the 64-Bit version of the software is incentive enough for me to want to trade-up. And while some may find the new Ribbon Bar intimidating (hey even I had to get used to it), given time it will prove a time-saver. HTML rendering aside, Microsoft continues to improve its premiere messaging application; for me "Outlook 2010" is (still) the contact management program for me and remains the best on the market, period!