Microsoft Outlook

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For the e-mail and news client bundled with certain versions of Microsoft Windows, see Outlook Express.
Microsoft Office Outlook
Microsoft Office Outlook Icon
Microsoft Office Outlook Screenshot
Screenshot of Outlook 2007.
Developed by Microsoft
Latest release 12.0.6212.1000 (2007 SP1) / December 11, 2007
OS Microsoft Windows
Genre Personal information manager
License Proprietary EULA
Website Microsoft Office Outlook Homepage

Microsoft Outlook or Outlook (full name Microsoft Office Outlook since Outlook 2003) is a personal information manager from Microsoft, and is part of the Microsoft Office suite.

Although often used mainly as an e-mail application, it also provides a calendar, task and contact management, note taking, a journal and web browsing.

It can be used as a stand-alone application, but can also operate in conjunction with Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to provide enhanced functions for multiple users in an organization, such as shared mailboxes and calendars, Exchange public folders, Sharepoint lists and meeting time allocation.

Contents

[edit] Versions

Outlook replaced Microsoft's previous scheduling and mail program, Schedule+ and Exchange Client.

Versions of Microsoft Outlook include:

Outlook for MS-DOS bundled with Exchange Server 5.5
Outlook for Windows 3.x bundled with Exchange Server 5.5
Outlook for Macintosh bundled with Exchange Server 5.5
Outlook 97 (version 8.0) included in Office 97 released January 16, 1997, also bundled with Exchange Server 5.5
Outlook 98 (version 8.5) released June 21, 1998, freely distributed with books and magazines for coping with newest Internet standard such as HTML mail[citation needed]
Outlook 2000 (version 9.0) included in Office 2000 released June 7, 1999, also bundled with Exchange 2000 Server
Outlook 2002 (version 10) included in Office XP released May 31, 2001
Office Outlook 2003 (version 11) included in Office 2003 released October 21, 2003, also bundled with Exchange Server 2003
Office Outlook 2007 (version 12) included in Office 2007, except Office Home and Student edition released November 30, 2006

(release dates are for U.S. product launches)
The version numbers follows the Office numbers.

The "Outlook Today" screen in Microsoft Outlook 2000.
The "Outlook Today" screen in Microsoft Outlook 2000.

Outlook 98 and Outlook 2000 could be installed in one of two configurations:

  • Internet Mail Only or IMO mode: A lighter application mode with specific emphasis on POP3 accounts and IMAP accounts and including a lightweight Fax application.

Microsoft also released several versions of Outlook for the Apple Macintosh; however, most mail features were disabled after Office 98. After Office 98, Entourage replaced Outlook on Macintosh systems, although in 2001 Microsoft released Outlook 2001 for Mac to allow Classic users to access Exchange servers. Over the past few years, Microsoft has improved Entourage to provide Mac users with a Mac OS X-compatible Exchange client, though it does not have the entire functionality provided by Outlook.

[edit] Outlook 2007

Outlook 2007 was available in retail stores at the end of January 2007. A trial is available for download on Office Online[1]. New features in Outlook 2007 include[2]:

  • A to-do bar added to the shell UI that shows a snapshot of the user's upcoming appointments and active tasks for better time and project management.
  • Improved calendar views that display the tasks due below each day on the week view and supports overlaying multiple calendars.
  • Integrated RSS aggregator
  • 'Instant Search' through a context indexer based search engine with Windows Desktop Search
  • Enhanced integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server
  • New programmability features [1]
  • Ability to publish calendars in Internet Calendar format to Microsoft Office Online or to a WebDAV server

[edit] Internet standards compliance

[edit] HTML rendering

Outlook 2007 was the first Outlook to switch from Internet Explorer HTML rendering to Microsoft Word 2007 HTML rendering. This means HTML and CSS items not handled by Word are no longer supported. On the other hand, HTML messages composed in Word will look more or less as they appeared to the author.

This most affects those publishing newsletters, because they frequently use intricate HTML and/or CSS to form their layout. For example, forms can no longer be embedded in e-mail.

[edit] Calendar compatibility

Outlook does not fully support data and syncing specifications for calendaring and contacts, such as iCalendar, CalDAV, SyncML and vCard 3.0. Outlook 2007 claims to be fully iCalendar compliant; however, it does not support all core objects, such as VTODO, VJOURNAL. Also, Outlook supports vCard 2.1 and does not support multiple contacts in the vCard format as a single file. Outlook has also been criticized for having proprietary "Outlook extensions" to these Internet standards.

[edit] Security concerns

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One of Microsoft's goals is for the e-mail client to be easy to use. However, the embedded automation and lack of security[citation needed] features compared to competitors[citation needed] have been repeatedly exploited by malicious hackers using e-mail viruses. These typically take the form of an e-mail attachment which executes[citation needed] on the user's machine and replicates itself by mass-mailing the user's or Exchange server's address list. Examples of such viruses are the Melissa and Sobig worms. Other programs have exploited Outlook's HTML e-mail capabilities to execute malicious code or confirm that e-mail addresses are valid targets for spam. The notoriety of the worms and other viruses has gained Outlook a reputation[citation needed] as a highly insecure e-mail platform[citation needed].

Unix programmer Bill Joy has suggested that Outlook is insecure largely because it was written in C, making it easy to write programs to exploit it[vague]. He also believes the widespread use of Outlook is a major contributing factor in the proliferation of spam.[3]

As part of its Trustworthy Computing initiative, Microsoft took corrective steps to fix Outlook's reputation in Office Outlook 2003. Among the most publicized security features are that Office Outlook 2003 does not automatically load images in HTML e-mails or permit opening executable attachements by default, and includes a built-in Junk Mail filter[4]. Service Pack 2 has augmented these features and adds an anti-Phishing filter [5].

This release was well received, and regarded as the primary driver of Office upgrades among business users.[citation needed]. However, it still used Internet Explorer as its renderer of HTML content, a product whose security flaws are well documented and ongoing. Some defects in IE can be exploited by malicious emails. Outlook 2007 has switched to using the Microsoft Word HTML renderer to avoid this - although the change created its own problems. In addition, unlike other email programs Outlook[vague] does not allow views of HTML source code of messages in a straightforward manner[citation needed]. While this may encourage the purchase of additional security measures (and therefore promote the software industry), it prevents IT professionals from directly searching for malicious code when cookie-cutter solutions prove futile.[vague][citation needed]

[edit] Outlook Express

Main article: Outlook Express

Outlook Express is a slimmed-down e-mail, newsgroup, and contact management application that Microsoft makes available at no charge, in conjunction with the Internet Explorer web browser, as an alternative to Outlook. Other than the similar name there is no connection between the two products and they originate from different divisions of Microsoft. While both offer access to POP3 and IMAP4 e-mail accounts, only Outlook offers client access (MAPI) to Microsoft Exchange. Outlook Express has been replaced with Windows Live Mail.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Try the 2007 Microsoft Office system
  2. ^ Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 product overview
  3. ^ Fortune Magazine interview with Bill Joy
  4. ^ Microsoft Office 2003 editions comparison
  5. ^ Microsoft 'Security at Home' website

[edit] External links

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