If you want to deploy a PRF file to all your users you can use this sample .vbs code.
I took some time and I wrote this sample code which will help you to deploy a PRF to all your users, but before doing this please read the statement below:

 “MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES ABOUT THE SUITABILITY, RELIABILITY OR ACCURACY OF THE SAMPLE APPLICATION THAT HAS BEEN SENT TO YOU,
PLEASE USE IT ON YOUR OWN RISK AND JUST AS A SAMPLE APPLICATION THAT ILUSTRATES HOW SUCH A FUNCTIONALITY CAN BE IMPLEMETED.
This sample is not supported under any Microsoft standard support program or service. The sample code is provided AS IS without warranty of any kind. Microsoft further disclaims all implied warranties including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability or of fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk arising out of the use or performance of  the sample code and documentation remains with you. In no event shall Microsoft, its authors, or anyone else involved in the creation, production, or delivery of the code be liable for any  damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of business information, or other pecuniary loss) arising out of the use of or inability to use the sample code or documentation.”

Please test this before you apply this globally in your organization.
This VBS sample code was written for all Outlook versions:

Dim oShell
Dim FSO, FSO2
Dim strSource
Dim strTarget
Dim UserName
Dim objFile, FileName

 ' ===============================
 'if you want to run only for newly profiles and you don’t want to update the old ones, you can use the commented lines below:
 ' Set oShell = Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
 ' On Error Resume Next 
 ' DefProfileKey = oShell.RegRead("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\DefaultProfile")
 ' If Err.Number <> 0 Then
 ' Err.Clear
 ' if (DefProfileKey = "") Then
 ' ===============================

Set oShell = Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
UserName = oShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%USERNAME%")
checkFile = "C:\Documents and Settings\" & UserName & "\prf.txt"
strSource = "\\zonedcc1\Alex\outlook.prf" 'path to the prf file, this should be changed with your location where the PRF is saved.
strTarget = "C:\Documents and Settings\" & UserName & "\" 'path to the prf file
Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set FSO2 = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
wscript.echo strtarget
on error resume next
If (FSO.FileExists(strSource) = True) Then
FSO.CopyFile strSource, strTarget, True
if not (FSO2.FileExists(checkFile) = True) Then
 
 oshell.RegDelete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Setup\First-Run" '14.0 is for Outlook 2010
 oshell.RegDelete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Setup\First-Run" '12.0 is for Outlook 2007
 oshell.RegDelete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Setup\First-Run" '11.0 is for Outlook 2003
 
 oshell.RegDelete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Setup\FirstRun"
 oshell.RegDelete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Setup\FirstRun"
 oshell.RegDelete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Setup\FirstRun"
 
oshell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Setup\ImportPRF", strTarget & "Outlook.prf", "REG_SZ"
oshell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Setup\ImportPRF", strTarget & "Outlook.prf", "REG_SZ"
oshell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Setup\ImportPRF", strTarget & "Outlook.prf", "REG_SZ"
Set objFile = FSO2.CreateTextFile(checkFile)
End if  
End if
Set FSO = Nothing
Set FSO2 = Nothing
Set oShell = Nothing
'

Additional information:

Apply an Outlook Profile (PRF) File to configure Outlook profiles:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178945(office.12).aspx

Customize Outlook profiles by using an Outlook Profile (PRF) file:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179062.aspx

Office Customization Tool in Office 2010:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179097.aspx 

I hope this helps you, and I’m glad to receive any comments or suggestions.

For example if you migrated to Outlook 2007 and you also received a new machine, you want to make a back-up of the NK2 files and also to your signatures before the upgrade.
With this sample .vbs logoff script you can copy all these information from this folders to an external location (network drive) and after the migration use a logon script to copy them back:

Outlook saves the local data in this two locations :
- C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook
- C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

Please read the following information to get an overview about this data:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff625288.aspx - Nickname cache
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/copy-autocomplete-name-list-to-another-computer-HA001139451.aspx   Copy Autocomplete name list to another computer

MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES ABOUT THE SUITABILITY, RELIABILITY OR ACCURACY OF THE SAMPLE APPLICATION THAT HAS BEEN SENT TO YOU
PLEASE USE IT ON YOUR OWN RISK AND JUST AS A SAMPLE APPLICATION THAT ILUSTRATES HOW SUCH A FUNCTIONALITY CAN BE IMPLEMETED
This sample is not supported under any Microsoft standard support program or service. The sample code is provided AS IS without warranty of any kind. Microsoft further disclaims all implied warranties including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability or of fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk arising out of the use or performance of  the sample code and documentation remains with you. In no event shall Microsoft, its authors, or anyone else involved in the creation, production, or delivery of the code be liable for any  damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of business information, or other pecuniary loss) arising out of the use of or inability to use the sample code or documentation.
 

You can create a script which should copy all the information from this folder to a location (network drive) and after the migration use a logon script to copy this back, below you will find how to copy all these files:

For NK2:
Local - C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook.

Dim fldr
Set oWShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
sAppdFolder = oWShell.RegRead ("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Local AppData")
'Wscript.echo sAppdFolder
Set oFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set fldr = oFso.GetFolder(sAppdFolder & "\Microsoft\Outlook")
for each fl in fldr.Files
if Right(fl.Name, 4) = ".NK2" then
'Wscript.echo "Will copy " & fl.Name
fl.copy  "\\Server\Outlook\Alex\NK2\" & fl.name
end if
next

Roaming - C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook

Dim fldr
Set oWShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
sAppdFolder = oWShell.RegRead ("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\AppData")
'Wscript.echo sAppdFolder
Set oFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set fldr = oFso.GetFolder(sAppdFolder & "\Microsoft\Outlook")
for each fl in fldr.Files
if Right(fl.Name, 4) = ".NK2" then
'Wscript.echo "Will copy " & fl.Name
fl.copy  "\\Server\Outlook\Alex\NK2\" & fl.name
end if
next

For Signatures:

- C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Signatures
- C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Signatures

Local - C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Signatures

Dim fldr
Set oWShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
sAppdFolder = oWShell.RegRead ("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Local AppData")
Set oFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set fldr = oFso.GetFolder(sAppdFolder & "\Microsoft\Signatures")
'WScript.echo fldr.Path
oWShell.Run  "Xcopy """ & fldr.path & "\*""" &  " ""\\Server\Outlook\Alex\Signatures"" /E/i"

Roaming - C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Signatures

Dim fldr
Set oWShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
sAppdFolder = oWShell.RegRead ("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\AppData")
Set oFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set fldr = oFso.GetFolder(sAppdFolder & "\Microsoft\Signatures")
'WScript.echo fldr.Path
oWShell.Run  "Xcopy """ & fldr.path & "\*""" &  " ""\\Server\Outlook\Alex\Signatures"" /E/i"

Additional Info:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179097.aspx - Office Customization Tool in the 2007 Office system
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc764476.aspx  - Office Customization Tool (OCT) overview

I hope this helps you, and I’m glad to receive any comments or suggestions.

Since there aren't many written sources for sharing categories, I thought it might be useful to discuss a bit on this topic and how can this be achieved in Outlook 2010.

As a background information for versions prior to Outlook 2007 category information was stored in the local registry. There is a binary key, called MasterList, located under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\x.0\Outlook\Categories that contains the information on the categories.

The key will be written only if you customize the Master List.

Since Outlook 2007 the information on categories is stored on the mailbox (more specifically in a Mapi property on the item IPM.Configuration.CategoryList within the Calendar, called PR_ROAMING_XMLSTREAM).

When you will upgrade users to Outlook 2007/2010 from Outlook 2003, each user's categories and flags are still available. Flags, reminders, and labels will be rolled into categories for Outlook 2007/2010. Outlook will migrate category and flag information into the new categories structure.

• Quick flags: When a user starts Outlook 2007/2010 for the first time, all existing quick flags migrate to categories. The same color is used, but date information is not retained. If an item has a reminder flag, the reminder is migrated separately.

• Calendar labels: Labels also migrate when Outlook starts and are added to the user's categories list.

• Other categories: Categories for non-mail items (such as tasks) migrate to Outlook 2007/2010 categories and a random color will be assigned to each category

Color categoryselections are stored in the users default mailbox storage location, which should be the mailbox on the server. This means categories now roam with the user. However, you may need to right click on the root folder, choose Properties and click the button to Upgrade to color categories. This will assign random colors to the categories.

Outlook 2007/2010 will no longer use the registry for a master category list. Instead, they are stored in the default message store (mailbox or pst). For example, if you are setting up a new system and using your old pst, the color categories will be available on the new system.

Although categories are not meant to be shared you might encounter scenarios in which an administrator for a shared mailbox would like to have the color categories visible for all the other users that access the shared mailbox.

The expected behavior is to only see the categories but not the colors.

However, if you want to make also the colors visible for other users there are two methods to achieve this: 

1. Add the shared mailbox as an additional mailbox and provide Reviewer permissions on the Calendar.

This is required as the Category list is stored on the Calendar.

This is how you are seeing the categories for the additional mailbox

2. Add the shared mailbox as an additional Exchange Account.

In this way you will have two category lists, one for each Exchange Account.

For this you need know the credentials of the shared mailbox (unless you have Full Mailbox Access) and have at least Reviewer Permissions on the Calendar, like in method 1.

Note: Adding the additional Exchange Account with delegate access is considered unsupported.

This is how you are seeing the categories for the additional Exchange Account

This is how you are seeing the categories for your own account

For all the methods above, the already categorized items from the shared mailbox will have the color category visible.

To summarize this, there are several options for sharing and managing color categories in Outlook 2010:

1. Adding the shared mailbox as an additional mailbox and provide Reviewer permissions on the Calendar.

2. Adding the shared mailbox as an additional Exchange Account

Each of them have their own advantages and disadvantages, so please review the options and adapt them to your own environment, accordingly.

Please feel free to comment, raise questions or add extra information on the topic.

If there are users in your company that have huge mailboxes and in addition need to log on different machines all the time, you may consider enabling “Download Headers” in order to avoid spending a lot of time doing a full sync of the information from their mailboxes.

In case you were wondering why Outlook is doing a full sync of the messages even after you enable in Define Send/Receive Groups menu the option "Download headers only" for an Outlook cached mode client, this blog can give you an overview about how these two options are intended to work.

More information:

By default, Outlook is Downloading Full Items and on Slow Connection is downloading Only the Headers.

 
The Send/Receive settings will not have any effect when working in cache mode. This is the design behavior as cached mode will just use its own syncing mechanism. The Send/Receive settings will be taken into consideration only when synchronizing in offline mode.

In order to “Download Headers Only” in cached mode, you need to change the Download Preferences to Download Headers. If you manually enable this option under your current profile, you will notice that all the emails you receive will download only the message headers. However, this option has no effect for emails that were already downloaded in your OST before you enabled this option.

There is a GPO that enables the option “Download Headers” for all the users in cached mode. However, for existing profiles this GPO will take action only on new emails and not on emails that were already downloaded in your OST. In order to download only the headers for all the messages you need to create a new Outlook profile.

I added below the the GPO for enabling “Download Header” option in case you consider it as a suitable solution for your environment/users:

1.In Group Policy, load the Outlook 2010 template (Outlk14.adm):

  Office2010

  
2.Under User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Microsoft Office Outlook 2010\Tools| E-mail Accounts\Cached Exchange Mode, double-click Cached Exchange Mode (File | Cached Exchange Mode)

3.Click "Enabled" to configure the policy and select “Download Headers”
4.Click Apply- OK.
5.After the policy is enabled please check on the test machine if the below key is added

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\14.0\outlook\cachedmode

 "CachedExchangeMode"=dword:00000001

6.After applying the GPO “Download Preferences” should be grayed out

7.Configure a new Outlook profile and you will notice that all messages will download headers only.

Please feel free to comment or add any suggestions.

Happy Outlooking!

Mailbox Size and Quota information are two different pieces of information we can get from the “Thermometer” on the Outlook status bar. The quota thermometer provides awareness of the size of your mailbox and how far you are from reaching the limit. 

Outlook reads these values from MAPI properties that are exposed by the Exchange store. The following property values exist on the store to communicate quota information (synthesized from policies in AD):

PR_MESSAGE_SIZE_EXTENDED - The current size of the mailbox (when on the mailbox root)

PR_STORAGE_QUOTA_LIMIT - Warning Threshold

PR_PROHIBIT_SEND_QUOTA - The limit where sending mail is prohibited

PR_PROHIBIT_RECEIVE_QUOTA - The limit where receiving mail is prohibited (also the maximum size of the mailbox)

These properties are visible and used via an online mode profile. In cached mode, there is a similar set of properties that are mapped to the properties listed above, so they should always reflect the same values.

Specifically: 

PR_QUOTA_WARNING (0x341A0003) corresponds to PR_STORAGE_QUOTA_LIMIT (0x3FF50003)

PR_QUOTA_SEN D (0x341B0003) corresponds to PR_PROHIBIT_SEND_QUOTA (0x666E0003)

PR_QUOTA_RECEIVED (0x341C0003) corresponds to PR_PROHIBIT_RECEIVE_QUOTA (0x666A0003)

PR_MESSAGE_SIZE_EXTENDED (0x0E080014) has the same name but the values are retrieved from the server either directly or via the OST synchronization.

(more info on: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/stephen_griffin/archive/2012/04/17/cached-mode-quotas.aspx)

The total size is not computed on the fly, but updated when data is added to and deleted from the store. The free space is calculated by taking the maximum mailbox size and subtracting the current mailbox size (PR_PROHIBIT_RECIEVE_QUOTA – PR_MESSAGE_SIZE_EXTENDED).

To display quota information on the Outlook Status Bar, right-click the status bar, and then make sure that the Quota Information item is set to On. You can also view quota information by clicking the File tab of the Outlook ribbon.

For quota information to be displayed, your mailbox must be located on Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 or on Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. Additionally, you must have both of the following mailbox or store limits configured:

Note : If your mailbox is located on an Exchange 2003 server, Quota Information is not displayed in Outlook 2010. Additionally, the Outlook 2010 release (RTM) version in Cached Exchange Mode does not automatically start the Mailbox Cleanup Wizard when your mailbox is full. A hotfix package that changes the Mailbox Cleanup Wizard behavior is available. After you install this hotfix, when you run Outlook 2010 in Cached Exchange Mode, the Mailbox Cleanup Wizard starts when the mailbox is full:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2544027

When you are over your warning, the Quota Information icon will show up (even if it is not enabled all the time):

Then when the user is over the Prohibit Send limit it gets more visible:

Then the Quota Information turns red

And clicking on that takes you to the File menu where you can see how far you are over your limit and how much you need to delete to be able to send again.

When can we see the quota thermometer:

The Quota thermometer is not supported on additional mailboxes, such as delegate stores. That doesn't mean we can't have a different quota for that, it’s just that we won't see it in Outlook.

If the quota on an account is unlimited or no quota set, the Thermometer will not be displayed.

The thermometer is updated and displays the information for the folder/store currently selected. It always displays account quota information for the current folder selected (except for archive or PST stores, All mail items, SharePoint folders or IMAP accounts).

The Quota Thermometer will work with multiple Exchange accounts. The thermometer will show for whichever account has focus. The same behavior applies to Exchange + another type of account.

How are the updates triggered:

Quota updates are not triggered by moving the items to a different store. All triggers are based on time or the UI (like doing a Send/Receive).  There is no UI configuration to tell the user how often we ping the server for a user-initiated update to their mailbox size.

Updates can be triggered either manually by the user or automatically

The following user actions will request the server to update the properties :

* Emptying Deleted Items

* Emptying a Folder (via the button in the ribbon’s folder tab or right-click on folder)

* Permanently deleting (shift-delete) an item

* Closing the Archive / AutoArchive dialogs

Outlook will also ping the server to update quota information in the status bar if the user is below their warning quota. These updates occur every 30 minutes. There is also an update limit that has been set in order to reduce the server load and help improve performance. In this matter there can be only one update every 3 minutes (by default).However this can be changed by the Admin through custom GPO or logon script (the policy is not available in the standard ADM template):

Path : HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\StatusBar

Name : QuotaPollInterval

Type : REG_DWORD

Value : Integer

If this value is set to 0 then the Quota Thermometer will be disabled entirely (we will never request the properties from the sever or generate any additional RPCs).

Troubleshooting guidance:

If you encounter problems with the way the quota is displayed, the main recommendation would be to have a support case with Microsoft so that a Support Engineer could assist you, depending on the particular scenario you are seeing.

However here are some things you might want to test and have the information prepared prior to doing this:

1. Install the latest updates for the Outlook client
2. Remove any third-party components (or try in safe mode)
3. One critical aspect is to determine if the issue is occurring in cached mode or online mode? If available, you can also try in OWA.
4. Check if the problem is occurring for the main mailbox or if you have additional mailboxes added in their profile, multiex or other accounts/stores for which of these stores/accounts the problem is occurring.
5. Does it happen if you configure an Outlook profile for only one account or if you open the additional mailbox in its own profile?
6. Get an OffCAT scan and check for any Quota related warnings/errors in the report.
7. Check if when performing a Send/Receive action the information is correctly updated
8. Check if after restarting Outlook the issue is still present.
9. Check if the Antivirus is scanning the OST file and if so, please have it added to the exclusion list
10. Check if after recreating the profile (or just renaming the ost) the issue still occurs
11. Check the Sync Issues folder
12. If you are using an Exchange server, verify if the following properties are set on the server:

• PR_STORAGE_QUOTA_LIMIT 
• PR_PROHIBIT_SEND_QUOTA
• PR_PROHIBIT_RECEIVE_QUOTA

Note: If only one or two of them are set, you need to have all three populated so you can get the accurate information.

Potential causes for quota issues in Outlook:

Normally these kind of issues are mostly seen in cache mode and can be caused by (but not limited to):

1. Poor network or other traffic interruptions (Since the information is requested and received from the server in a low priority task, this can be truncated when something interferes with the client/server connectivity) 
2. Information not set correctly on the server
3. Conflicting quotas set on different stores accessed from the same profile
4. Removing the quotas completely after the mailbox exceeded the previous quota values
5. OST corruption
6. 3rd party touching the OST file

Known issues and references:

1. Mailbox Quota Information is not displayed on the Status bar in Outlook http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982997
2. The Mailbox Cleanup Wizard does not start in Outlook 2010 when the mailbox is full http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2632283/EN-US
3. Users do not receive quota warning messages after applying SP1 for Exchange 2010 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2480474

Exchange Server 2013 introduces a change that has an adverse effect on the Outlook junk email filter feature. The end result is that messages excluded from junk email evaluation in earlier versions of Exchange Server and in Office 365 pre-upgrade environments are now evaluated and potentially moved to the Junk E-mail folder.

Background

Outlook and Exchange use a MAPI property (PR_CONTENT_FILTER_SCL) to control the behavior of junk email features in Outlook. Specifically, Exchange can set this property to a value that tells Outlook to exclude the message from client side junk email scanning. This property is referred to commonly as the “SCL” for the message.

Outlook limitation with Exchange Server 2013 and Office 365

With Exchange Server 2013 and Office 365, Outlook does not use the SCL value from the Exchange Server.

The following results apply:

• The MAPI SCL value is ignored, regardless of how it is applied by Exchange
• Outlook sends all mail originating from an SMTP sender to the junk filter for evaluation
• The junk email decision is made by the filter
• If the filter evaluates the email message to be junk, then Outlook moves it to the Junk E-mail folder

Important This does not mean that all email messages always go to the Junk E-mail folder. However, they are not automatically excluded from junk email processing. The junk email filter will still make a decision, and some email messages may appear to work fine, while others go to the Junk E-mail folder. This includes email messages sent from an external trusted domain addresses for which SCL is set to -1 by using an Exchange Transport Rule or the IPAllowList. Also affected is internal email from process servers or custom applications that use SMTP.

Workarounds

• Add the affected sender addresses to the Safe Senders list. Note that if the address includes an accepted domain within your organization, you need to include the full address rather than only the domain (example: alias@internaldomain.com, not just @internaldomain.com).
   
• Add a mail-enabled contact in Active Directory for the affected internal address. In some configurations, this will allow the sender address to resolve to a friendly name and deliver the message to the Inbox folder as an internal email message.
  
  
• Lower the level of junk e-mail protection under Junk E-mail Options, or disable the junk filter by selecting No Automatic Filtering in Outlook. 
  
  
  
  While disabling the Outlook junk filter is not a great choice, it ensures important messages are not unexpectedly diverted to the Junk E-mail folder by the Outlook junk filter.

Status and planning

Microsoft is aware of and is currently evaluating this issue for consideration for a fix.  As more information becomes available, it will be posted in the following Knowledge Base article:

2885002 Outlook unexpectedly marks messages as junk even if the SCL level is low

Additional resources

If you are unfamiliar with the application and management of SCL -1 as it relates to Exchange Server 2010 and later versions, please see Tom Kern’s excellent post on the Exchange Team Blog:

Accepted Domains, Safe Senders List and You

AutoComplete feature in Outlook and how it works:

The nickname cache feature makes it quicker to resolve a name for a recipient that you use on a regular basis. The feature has changed a little over the years with the different versions of Outlook. For example, the filename extension has gone from .NICK to .NK2 between Outlook 2002 and Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007.

                The NickName Cache file is used for easy resolving of names that you send emails most frequently. It saves you from having to type in the entire email address for a recipient.

The nickname cache file will be located on a user’s machine in the following path:

When you use Outlook to send email it will store the email address for the recipient in the Outlook profile’s matching named NickName Cache File (i.e. Profile name: “Default Outlook Profile”, corresponding NickName Cache file: “Default Outlook Profile.NK2”). This is part of the Auto-Suggest/Auto-Complete component of Outlook.

                If you have two computers and on the second one you have created a new profile, a new .nk2 file will be created. You can copy the .nk2 file from the first computer on the second one in order to maintain the cache names. Each profile will have a .nk2 file associated.

The nickname cache is always held in memory until you exit Outlook. The updated information related to the cache is not written into the .nk2 file until you exit Outlook.If you receive an NDR after sending to the recipient, the correct information for that user is no longer available in the NK2 file or the file got corrupted.

AutoComplete feature in OWA 2007 vs Outlook:

                OWA allows now to cache the most recent entries used when sending messages. These entries are stored on the user’s mailbox. There is no link between these entries and the entries stored in the Outlook .NK2 file.

                For example if you used Outlook to send messages to users: User1, User2, User3, in the .NK2 file of the Outlook profile you will have these entries.

                If you use afterwards OWA 2007 to send message to User4, User5 in the OWA 2007 these entries will be available for the OWA AutoComplete. User4 and User5 will not be stored in Outlook’s .NK2

 How to resolve problems with “corrupted” entries in .NK2 file of Outlook (Microsoft supported):

Option 1: Delete only the “incorrect” entries manually using Outlook

                As this file is associated to each profile and stored on users computers, in order to remove only the corrupted entries, users should delete them manually from Outlook. 

                If there are few incorrect entries I would suggest this method because we will avoid losing the entire recipients cache. If the entire file is corrupted, you will need to recreated the entire .NK2 file.

To remove an user from Outlook's nickname cache (.NK2) file, clear the nickname cache entry for that specific recipient:

1. Open a new e-mail message.
2. Begin typing the first letters of that recipient's name or e-mail address.
3. Continue typing the name until only that one recipient's name appears in the list of automatically suggested/completed names.
4. Press the DEL key on your keyboard.

Note: One of the most important things to remember about the nickname cache feature is that new entries are not written to the .nk2 file until you exit and restart Outlook.

Delete a name from the AutoComplete list

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HP063767381033.aspx

Option 2: Delete the .NK2 file in order to have a new file created

                In this case the entire file will be replaced with a new one. The existing entries in the old file will not be added in the new one. The new .NK2 file will be an empty file and entries will be created while messages will be sent to different recipients (after Outlook exit, these entries will be written in the .NK2 file).

Additional details on AutoComplete can be found here :

Prerequisites

1.1   Make sure that you are up-to-date!

1.1.1          Outlook

For administrators is very important keep all Outlook clients updated with the latest Microsoft cumulative updates for Office/Outlook.

1.1.2          Exchange

Exchange server should be up-to-date in order to avoid issues that were corrected in released Rollups or Service Packs.

1.1.3          Blackberry/Palm/Other mobile devices used to synchronize the Outlook Calendar

Very often users are synchronizing their mailbox (including calendar) with handheld devices (Blackberry, Palm, Iphone, etc.). For this reason it is also very important to update the software for these devices and 3^rd party servers that are used for Exchange mailbox synchronization.

Best practices for the Outlook client

2.1   Same Outlook version when multiple users are working on the same calendar (for example while using delegation)

When working on the same calendar we recommend using the same Outlook version with the same service pack and "updates" level.

In fact an Outlook client up-to-date and an Outlook client that is not up-to-date might have a different behavior while processing a meeting and conflicts might appear. The same principle applies when using different Outlook versions.

When you use delegates in Outlook 2007, it is recommended that the manager and all the delegates use Outlook 2007 Service Pack 2

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924470

2.2   Always process meeting invites from the Inbox folder

Normally when a user is invited to a meeting, an email message will appear in his Inbox folder, containing the meeting invite. At the same time the meeting will be placed in the Calendar as “tentative”.  These operations are automatically made by Outlook and Exchange.

We recommend that the user that receives the meeting invite to process it using the meeting invite message (from Inbox) and to avoid deleting this message before processing the meeting.

Deleting the meeting request message from Inbox, before manually processing the meeting, will delete also the “tentative” meeting from your calendar.

Once the meeting is processed using the meeting invite message, you will see that the meeting will change from “Tentative” to “Accepted”

2.3   Always process meetings invites that you receive

As mentioned previously when receiving a meeting request, a meeting/appointment will be placed in your calendar as “Tentative”.

We recommend processing the meeting request (by accepting/ declining/ etc.). This will inform the meeting organizer about your presence in the meeting or not (if you decline). The same principle applies with updates for already accepted meetings.

Leaving the meeting as Tentative without processing it will potentially create conflicts and the information in your calendar won’t be accurate.

2.4   Do not delete meetings from your calendar

Once you accepted a meeting and you are no longer able to participate do not delete the meeting from your calendar!

If you delete the meeting the organizer will not be informed that you declined the meeting and in his calendar you will still appear in the attendees list.

If you are not going to participate in a meeting that you previously accepted please use the “Decline” button to send the meeting cancelation message. When you decline a meeting the organizer will receive this message and you will be removed from the attendees list.

Also if you are not able to attend to a meeting at the proposed time you can always use the “Proposed New Time” feature of Outlook in order to inform the organizer.

Note: You will not receive any meeting updates for a meeting you declined.

2.5   How to move or delete a meeting

Once a meeting was created (organizer) and accepted (attendees) you might want to modify the time/date/etc.

a)      If you are the meeting organizer

If you want to move a meeting, make your changes and make sure that you use the “Send Update” button in order to inform all attendees.

b)      If you are attendee to this meeting

Check 2.4 above

2.6   Accept meeting cancellations

If you receive a meeting cancellation message, open the message and click on the “Remove from Calendar” button. Like this the meeting will be removed from the calendar, in order to avoid the situation when the meeting was cancelled but it will still appear in your calendar.

2.7   Recurring meetings

In order to have a recurring meeting you will need to add a recurrence for it. This means that the meeting will take place according to the frequency you set (Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Yearly). You also have the option to set the range of recurrence starting from (Start field) to:

-          No end date 

-          End After: number of occurrences

-          End By: here you can enter a date

We recommend using an “End Date” for a recurring meeting.

2.8.1 Changing the organizer of a recurring meeting

It is not possible to change the organizer of a meeting or recurring meeting.

2.8.3 Exceptions

 A recurring meeting exception is in fact an occurrence that is modified (date/time). An exception will no longer correspond to the recurrence pattern.

2.8.4 Deleting a recurring meeting as organizer

      Do no delete the meeting from your calendar. In order to delete a recurring meeting you will need to open the series (if you open the occurrence you will cancel only that occurrence) and click on the “Cancel Meeting” (this is the option for Outlook 2007). The next step is to send this information to all attendees in order to update also their calendar. To do this, use the “Send Cancelation” button.

Attendees will receive in their inbox the “Cancellation” message and will have the possibility to remove the meeting from their calendar (with the Remove from Calendar button).

Important: All occurrences for the meeting will be deleted.

 Additional information:

Outlook meeting requests: Essential do’s and don’ts

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA011276781033.aspx

Working with support to troubleshoot the Outlook calendar in an Exchange environment

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc891495.aspx

Description of common scenarios in which Calendar information may be removed from the Calendar or may be inaccurate

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/899704

Scenario:

User A sends an email message with an attachment to User B. The attachment name has the following filename: Name.a.b.c.txt. When User B receives the attachment and opens it from Outlook he will see thatdots (“.”) from the file are replaced with blank spaces (instead of Name.a.b.c.txt the file will appear as Name a b c.txt).

How the attachment appears in Outlook in the received message:

How the filename appears when the attachment is opened in Outlook:

This behavior is not seen when saving first the attachment on your disk. If the attachment is first saved then the filename will contain the special characters.

Explanation for this behavior:

Outlook 2003 and 2007 have been designed keeping security as an important feature. The Security has been advanced on Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2002 Service Pack3. Attachments which contain the following special characters:  '.' ']' ';' ',' '=' embedded in the filename have potential security risks involved.

For this reason, the Outlook security will strip these characters out of filenames and replace them with a blank space.

We have seen cases when executables containing viruses were sent in this filename format (for example hello.exe.txt) as an attachment in Outlook. Double-clicking in Outlook on the file have the risk of executing directly the .exe file, so launching the virus:

Some examples below:

 Win32.Mimail.Q: http://www.ca.com/us/securityadvisor/virusinfo/virus.aspx?id=38104

Win32.Netsky.P@mm : http://www.bitdefender.com/VIRUS-27915-en--Win32.Netsky.P@mm.html

            In other words, this is the design of Outlook and you will need to avoid using special characters in filenames in order to preserve the entire name when opening it from Outlook.

If you want to have these special characters, I can suggest the following workarounds:

1)      Do not use special characters in the filenames. You could use ‘_’ (underscore) or '-' (dash).

2)      Save the attachment first before opening it in order to preserve the full name. The sender and recipient should use an antivirus to scan the files before opening it/sending it.

The following blog post will give an overview of common tools used to troubleshoot Outlook issues. I will focus in this post on Process Explorer. I will not cover all features that Process Explorer has, but I will try to highlight some of them that you can use while investigating an Outlook issue.

Process Explorer

Download link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.

How you can use Process Explorer with Outlook:

Most of the time, when we have problems with Outlook (unexpected behavior of the Outlook client, Outlook is consuming too much memory 100 % CPU, Outlook crashes, etc.) one of the very first steps is to check if the Outlook client works correctly in safe mode. What safe mode means?

Safe mode means that you will not use some of the Outlook features during that session and you will prevent addins to be loaded etc.

 In order to start Outlook in safe mode the switch to be used is : /safe. (Starts Outlook without Microsoft Exchange Client Extensions (ECE), the Reading Pane, or toolbar customizations. Component Object Model (COM) add-ins are turned off.)

Command line to start Outook in safe mode : Outlook.exe /safe.

More details on Outlook switches: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HP012185891033.aspx

As mentioned above, one of the results while using Safe mode: addins are disabled. (not all addins can be disabled using safe mode)

Let’s assume that using safe mode the problem is not appearing anymore in Outlook. In order to go deeper with our analysis we will go and check:  which DLLs files are loaded while starting Outlook in “normal” mode and which DLLs files are loaded in “safe” mode (under the Outlook process).

In order to compare these two lists we can use Process Explorer to dump the full list of DLLs files.

Here is how you will use Process Explorer to list and export the DLLs files that are appearing under the Outlook.exe process

a)      Download Process Explorer and install it on the impacted computer. Start Process Explorer

b)      Start Outlook  (normal mode/ safe Mode)

c)       Once Outlook is started you will see in Process Explorer main window the Outlook.exe process 

d)      Select the line containing the Outlook.exe process and press “CTRL+D” in order to display the list of DLLs

e)      The main window will split in two: the upper pane will display all Windows active processes and the lower window will display the list of DLLs for the selected process (in our case Outlook.exe)

f)       You will use the lower pane to check all the DLLs that are under the Outlook process. As in our example the problem is not appearing in safe mode, you would need to check if there are DLLS (Microsoft, 3rd party) that are appearing in “Normal” mode and aren’t appearing in “Safe” Mode.

g)      The easiest way to do this is to export these lists  (one for Outlook started in normal mode and one for safe mode).

h)      You can use the “File -> Save As…” menu to export the list as TXT file.

i)        In our case you will have 2 export files that you can compare later.

j)        Even if these exports are saved as TXT files you can use Excel to filter the data and to select different DLLs (filtered by company for example, etc.)

Note: Of course you can use also the Process Explorer interface to sort and filter the content, but as I mentioned I think is easier to have all these exported and analyzed in Excel.

In Process Explorer window, lower pane you have by default the following columns: Name (dll filename), Description (friendly name of the application that is using the DLL), Company Name, Version. You can customize the lower pane columns by right-clicking on the column names and selecting: Select Columns.... For example you can select the “Path” column in order to have the location of the DLL file.

In order to have more details on a DLL file you can select the DLL and right click on it. Next you can choose “Properties”.

Another nice feature of Process Explorer is “Process Explorer Search” feature (Find -> “Find Handle or DLL” or press CTRL+F). For example if you see that your Outlook is crashing with mspst32.dll you can use this feature to see which processes are using the DLL ( might create a conflict/sharing violation/, could keep the DLL runing even if Outlook is closed, etc.)

Note: All details on Process Explorer features are also available in the Help menu.

Going further with our example where the problem does not appear while using Outlook in safe mode. Once you compared the 2 Process Export Files and you identify one or more 3^rd party DLLs (not Microsoft) that are appearing while Outlook is started in "normal" mode, you could check these files one by one in order to identify which one is impacting Outlook’s behavior.

Once you identified the DLL that is causing your problem you can open a support case with the application provider or you can check on their website if there is an update that corrects the behavior.

This was a basic example that I provided in order to underline the usage of Process Explorer. Of course you can use Process Explorer for advanced scenarios and more complicated issues. In order to see the benefits of Process Explorer while troubleshooting an Outlook issues you will need to try it and test it first.

More details:

Using Process Explorer to List dlls Running Under the Outlook.exe Process

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970920

Another tool that can be useful while trying to solve an Outlook issue is Process Monitor.

Download link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. It combines the features of two legacy Sysinternals utilities, Filemon and Regmon, and adds an extensive list of enhancements including rich and non-destructive filtering, comprehensive event properties such session IDs and user names, reliable process information, full thread stacks with integrated symbol support for each operation, simultaneous logging to a file, and much more

How to use Process Monitor while troubleshooting Outlook issues

I would say that Process Monitor can be used in various situations (OST gets corrupted, you cannot access one of your PST files in Outlook, you are not sure if a policy have been applied , you want to filter the data for a particular Outlook session that is used in a terminal server, etc). In order to describe the usage of Process Monitor I will focus on one situation. Let’s assume that your OST file gets corrupted very often and you have error messages in Outlook or you cannot access one of your PST files (access denied).

In these particular cases I would use Process Monitor in order to check if my files aren’t scanned by another program that could block Outlook access to the file.

How to start a trace or open an existing log:

You receive this error message when the log you want to open was taken on a x86 operating system and you are currently running Process Monitor on a x64 operating system. If you get this error message, you need to use /run32 command line as indicated in the error message.

In order to start a trace using Process Monitor you need to double-click on the Process Monitor .exe file and the following Filter will appear. Click next on “OK”.

In the main window you will see that the trace started. In this trace you will have by default: Registry Activity, File System Activity, Network Activity, Process and Threads Activity. You can have also Profiling Events, option that is not selected by default. More details on these in Process Monitor Help -> Using Process Monitor.

In order to stop the trace you can use the File menu and click on the “Capture Events” option.

When to start and stop a trace:

I would say that Process Monitor should be started before you reproduce the problem in Outlook and you should stop capturing events right after the problem appeared. Like this you are sure that you captured the necessary data.

How to filter your trace:

In order to describe the filter option of Process Monitor I will go further with our example, PST that cannot be opened.  In this case I will try to see in the log I have if I can retrieve records for my .PST file. To find this the easiest way is to use the Process Monitor Filter (Filter menu -> Filter or just press CTRL+L).

In the Process Monitor Filter window you have the section “Display entries matching these conditions”. The drop-down list gives you different options to select in order to create your filtering condition. More details on filtering you will find in the Help menu -> Filtering and Highlighting.

In our case we would like to identify first the .PST file. If you don’t know which .PST file is causing the problem we will to identify all PST files that we are access in this session. One sample filter is listed below:

In this filter I am checking in the PATH field all entries that contain files with .PST extension. Once you applied the filter the results will be displayed. As we might have a conflict in accessing the PST file, we will need to check next which processes are accessing my PST besides Outlook. In the “Process Name” column we have the processes that are “working” with my file.  For example if you identify an antivirus that is scanning your PST one option in order to narrow down the possible cause would be to exclude the PST scan or to disable temporarily the antivirus in order to see if the problem persists. (as in my case were the antivirus was scanning the PST and Outlook.exe access was blocked).

Again, this is a simple example explained in order to describe some features of Process Monitor. You will need to test the tool and to apply it to different scenarios in order to see the benefits of using it.

Continuing with the tools series I will briefly describe MFCMAPI tool in this post. MFCMAPI is one of most complex tools that we can use to investigate Outlook issues and not only.

Taking in consideration the complexity of this tool, I will not be able to describe everything or to give examples for each feature in this post and I will try to focus on MFCMAPI most used features while checking different Outlook issues. As a case study I added a scenario when attachments are “missing” in a received message

Download link: http://mfcmapi.codeplex.com/

Warning   This is a powerful tool whereby you can change raw data. Changes to data may be difficult to reverse. This tool enables the user to change the data that are not valid values and to enter corrupted data. This can be difficult or impossible to recover from. This tool is reserved for professionals who understand how MAPI and Exchange work and should not be used casually.

Connecting to your profile using MFCMAPI

In order to connect to a mailbox you need to use the Session menu and Logon -> Display Store Table.   A prompt will be displayed that will allow you to choose the Outlook profile.

Online mode versus Cache mode view in MFCMAPI

Depending on your Outlook profile configuration Online or Exchange Cache Mode you will have one of the following displays in MFCMAPI. If your Outlook profile is in Online mode you will see “Top of Information Store”. If your Outlook profile is configured with Exchange Cache Mode you will see “IPM_SUBTREE” for your store.

Online Mode View:                                                         Exchange Cache Mode View:

How to save MAPI properties of an Item

In order to save the MAPI properties of an item you have 2 options. You can use the Property Pane menu or you can use the contextual menu after selecting the item.

a)      Property Pane

For example if you want to save the MAPI properties of a message in your Inbox:

-          Expand the Top of Information Store/IPM_SUBTREE

-          Double click on Inbox folder

-          Select the message

-          You can identify the message by checking the Subject column  in the upper pane

-          In the lower pane you will have the MAPI properties of the selected message

-          In order to save the content of lower pane use Property Pane -> Save Property Pane Contents …

-          Next you will be prompted with the classic Save As windows and you will be invited to save the contents as XML

b)      Contextual menu

Another way to save the MAPI properties of an item, in our case a message in Inbox using the contextual menu:

-          Select the message in the Inbox folder

-          Right click on this message

-          Next you can choose the Save Message(s) to File

-          Again you will be prompted to save the content as XML

How to check permissions on a folder

In order to check the permissions on mailbox folder we can use MFCMAPI to see which user has rights on that particular folder. You will also be able to see the permissions that that user has on the analyzed folder.

-          Expand the Top of Information Store/IPM_SUBTREE

-          Select the folder

-          Right-click on the folder and choose: Display ACL table…

-          The “Display ACL Table” window will appear

-          In the upper pane you will have the list of users that have permissions on that particular folder

-          As shown in the screenshot below you can see the name of the user (PR_MEMBER_NAME), the rights associated (MEMBER RIGHTS) etc.

How to check Public Folders

MFCMAPI can be used also to check the Public Folder structure. Using MFCMAPI you can access the created Public Folders but also the System Folders, including Free/Busy, Offline Address Book,  EFORMS Registry (Forms Library) etc.

In order to check these folders:

a)      Once you are connected in MFCMAPI

b)      In the main window, double click on the line that has as value : Public Folders for the Display Name column

c)       A new window will appear with the public folders structure

For example in the screenshot above I have one public folder (MyTestPublicFolder) under the Default Public Folders (IPM_SUBTREE) and the list of all system folders under NON_IPM_SUBTREE.

MFCMAPI allows you to check the content of these folders. Also you can check the permissions on these folders and much more.

View .MSG message or covert EML –MSG MSG-EML

Another interesting feature of MFCMAPI is the MSG-EML conversion. These conversions can be useful for example when analyzing text rendering issues in Outlook and you would like to have the full message source of a message. Also MFCMAPI allows you to open directly an MSG file you saved on your disk in order to analyze the MAPI properties.

View message attachments – Case study:  Attachments are not displayed

When analyzing a message you can also check the attachment table for that message and the recipient list. You might have for example a case where the attachment is not displayed in Outlook.

You received a message with attachment in Outlook and this is confirmed by the attachment icon that is displayed next to the message in the reading pane.

When you open the message you don’t see any attachment.

In this case one thing you can do is to check the MAPI properties of the message and more specific the attachment table in order to see if you really have an attachment for this message.

a)      Select folder that contains your message (in my case Inbox and the attachment name is Sunset.jpg)

b)      Select the message that normally has an attachment and right click on it in order to choose the Display Attachment Table option (next to this option you have also the Display Recipient Table if you want to check the recipient list for a message)

c)       A new window will open (Attachments)

d)      Normally if your message contains an attachment you will see it in the upper pane

e)      For my case, I can see that in fact I have an attachment. The question is: Why we cannot see this attachment when opening the message?

f)       What you should do next is to select the attachment and check in the lower pane the MAPI properties

g)      I will next check the following property: PR_ATTACHMENT_HIDDEN. In my case I can see that the value of this MAPI property is: True.

h)      This might explain why I cannot see the attachment in Outlook.

i)        I will modify change the value of this property to False in order to see if I will be able to solve my problem.

j)        I will double click on this property and the Property Editor window will appear

k)      I will uncheck the Boolean checkbox and click OK

l)        Next, in order to save the changes for my message, I will use the Actions menu and click on Save Changes On Message option

m)    You will see that the value changed to False for the PR_ATTACHMENT_HIDDEN

n)      Let’s check now in Outlook if we can see correctly the attachment when opening the message. The attachment appears correctly now.

More information:

Microsoft Exchange Server MAPI Editor

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb508857(EXCHG.65).aspx

Here is a good to know information about the Outlook 2010 Calendar module.

If you got used to working with more than 30 calendars at the same time, then this blog will definitely help you further.

I know this limitation was not present under Outlook 2007, so this will help you, if you decided to upgrade to Outlook 2010.

In Outlook 2010, there is a default limit of thirty (30) calendars that can be displayed in the Calendar module at one time. If you try to enable more than 30 calendars, you receive the following error.

“More than 30 calendars cannot be viewed at once.”

To allow more than 30 calendars to be displayed at the same time in the Calendar module, configure the following registry data:

Key: HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Options\Calendar

or

Key: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Options\Calendar

DWORD: CalendarMaximumNumber

Values: 40, 50, 60, 60, 70, 80, 90, or 100 (decimal)

Note: If you use any other value, it is ignored and the default limit of 30 calendars will be enforced.

Note: If you configure the limit to 40 calendars, for example, and you try to enable 41 calendars in the Calendar module, the error message displayed is updated to include the configured limit.

In this example, the error will be:

“More than 40 calendars cannot be viewed at once.”

I hope this is useful information for those who need this functionality.

If a user sends out an e-mail from his e-mail address (user@contoso.com) and digitally signs the e-mail using a different e-mail address (user@test.contoso.com) --> the receiver will see the signature as trusted. This happens although the signing e-mail address and the sending e-mail address are different.

The setting “Do not check e-mail address against address of certificates being used” is referring to the sender’s and not the recipient’s machine. This means, that if you enable this option, the Outlook application on the sender’s machine will not check if the signing address is the same as the sender’s address. This, however, does not apply for the recipient of that signed e-mail. The recipient will only check the signing address by default.

Here is the explanation from the ADM Templates for Outlook 2010:

“This policy setting controls whether Outlook verifies the user's e-mail address with the address associated with the certificate used for signing.\n \n If you enable this policy setting, users can send messages signed with certificates that do not match their e-mail addresses.\n \n If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, Outlook verifies that the user's e-mail address matches the certificate being used for signing.”

The behavior on the recipient’s machine is by design. For any incoming signed e-mail, Outlook will check the signing address and not the sender’s address. The check is being performed on the sender’s machine. If the setting is activated, Outlook will not check if the signing e-mail address is the same as the sender’s address.

Further information regarding this feature is provided by the following KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/276597 - How to turn off e-mail matching for certificates in Outlook.

Recently I monitored the behavior when working with DL’s and trying to export them into Excel. Let’s take into account the following scenario:

You are creating a personal distribution list in Outlook (no matter which version) and you add a few contacts in it. The contacts can be local or from the GAL and the number of entries is not important.

Then click on File – Import and Export  and export the DL to an Excel file. This works and you can store the file locally. However, when you open the Excel sheet you’ll notice that the contacts information is missing. You can, however see the column names (for ex. Name, E-Mail, Telephone number).

If you do the same operation, but for single or multiple contacts outside the DL, the information is visible in the Excel sheet. The explanation for this? Well, it’s simple.

The entries in the Contacts folder in Outlook are exportable and will take all the properties in the Excel file. However, the entries in a personal DL are not really contacts, but links to those contact entries. Simpler explained, when you export a DL, only the DL properties are being written in the Excel sheet and not the contacts. Therefore, no data regarding e-mails, tel. numbers or addresses will be displayed.

The same happens when you add multiple contacts from the Global Address List into a personal distribution list. The exported data will show no contact info.

Background for this is that the personal DL’s in Outlook where primarily designed for helping users send e-mails to multiple contacts at one time. A simple workaround to the issue presented is to select the desired contacts directly from the Contacts folder in Outlook and export them. This way, the data will be shown in the Excel sheet.

 If you want to deploy a PRF file to all your users you can use this sample .vbs code.
I took some time and I wrote this sample code which will help you to deploy a PRF to all your users, but before doing this please read the statement below:

 “MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES ABOUT THE SUITABILITY, RELIABILITY OR ACCURACY OF THE SAMPLE APPLICATION THAT HAS BEEN SENT TO YOU,
PLEASE USE IT ON YOUR OWN RISK AND JUST AS A SAMPLE APPLICATION THAT ILUSTRATES HOW SUCH A FUNCTIONALITY CAN BE IMPLEMETED.
This sample is not supported under any Microsoft standard support program or service. The sample code is provided AS IS without warranty of any kind. Microsoft further disclaims all implied warranties including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability or of fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk arising out of the use or performance of  the sample code and documentation remains with you. In no event shall Microsoft, its authors, or anyone else involved in the creation, production, or delivery of the code be liable for any  damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of business information, or other pecuniary loss) arising out of the use of or inability to use the sample code or documentation.”

Please test this before you apply this globally in your organization.
This VBS sample code was written for all Outlook versions:

Dim oShell
Dim FSO, FSO2
Dim strSource
Dim strTarget
Dim UserName
Dim objFile, FileName

 ' ===============================
 'if you want to run only for newly profiles and you don’t want to update the old ones, you can use the commented lines below:
 ' Set oShell = Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
 ' On Error Resume Next 
 ' DefProfileKey = oShell.RegRead("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\DefaultProfile")
 ' If Err.Number <> 0 Then
 ' Err.Clear
 ' if (DefProfileKey = "") Then
 ' ===============================

Set oShell = Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
UserName = oShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%USERNAME%")
checkFile = "C:\Documents and Settings\" & UserName & "\prf.txt"
strSource = "\\zonedcc1\Alex\outlook.prf" 'path to the prf file, this should be changed with your location where the PRF is saved.
strTarget = "C:\Documents and Settings\" & UserName & "\" 'path to the prf file
Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set FSO2 = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
wscript.echo strtarget
on error resume next
If (FSO.FileExists(strSource) = True) Then
FSO.CopyFile strSource, strTarget, True
if not (FSO2.FileExists(checkFile) = True) Then
 
 oshell.RegDelete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Setup\First-Run" '14.0 is for Outlook 2010
 oshell.RegDelete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Setup\First-Run" '12.0 is for Outlook 2007
 oshell.RegDelete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Setup\First-Run" '11.0 is for Outlook 2003
 
 oshell.RegDelete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Setup\FirstRun"
 oshell.RegDelete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Setup\FirstRun"
 oshell.RegDelete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Setup\FirstRun"
 
oshell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Setup\ImportPRF", strTarget & "Outlook.prf", "REG_SZ"
oshell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Setup\ImportPRF", strTarget & "Outlook.prf", "REG_SZ"
oshell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Setup\ImportPRF", strTarget & "Outlook.prf", "REG_SZ"
Set objFile = FSO2.CreateTextFile(checkFile)
End if  
End if
Set FSO = Nothing
Set FSO2 = Nothing
Set oShell = Nothing
'

Additional information:

Apply an Outlook Profile (PRF) File to configure Outlook profiles:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178945(office.12).aspx

Customize Outlook profiles by using an Outlook Profile (PRF) file:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179062.aspx

Office Customization Tool in Office 2010:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179097.aspx 

I hope this helps you, and I’m glad to receive any comments or suggestions.

For example if you migrated to Outlook 2007 and you also received a new machine, you want to make a back-up of the NK2 files and also to your signatures before the upgrade.
With this sample .vbs logoff script you can copy all these information from this folders to an external location (network drive) and after the migration use a logon script to copy them back:

Outlook saves the local data in this two locations :
- C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook
- C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

Please read the following information to get an overview about this data:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff625288.aspx - Nickname cache
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/copy-autocomplete-name-list-to-another-computer-HA001139451.aspx   Copy Autocomplete name list to another computer

MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES ABOUT THE SUITABILITY, RELIABILITY OR ACCURACY OF THE SAMPLE APPLICATION THAT HAS BEEN SENT TO YOU
PLEASE USE IT ON YOUR OWN RISK AND JUST AS A SAMPLE APPLICATION THAT ILUSTRATES HOW SUCH A FUNCTIONALITY CAN BE IMPLEMETED
This sample is not supported under any Microsoft standard support program or service. The sample code is provided AS IS without warranty of any kind. Microsoft further disclaims all implied warranties including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability or of fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk arising out of the use or performance of  the sample code and documentation remains with you. In no event shall Microsoft, its authors, or anyone else involved in the creation, production, or delivery of the code be liable for any  damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of business information, or other pecuniary loss) arising out of the use of or inability to use the sample code or documentation.
 

You can create a script which should copy all the information from this folder to a location (network drive) and after the migration use a logon script to copy this back, below you will find how to copy all these files:

For NK2:
Local - C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook.

Dim fldr
Set oWShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
sAppdFolder = oWShell.RegRead ("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Local AppData")
'Wscript.echo sAppdFolder
Set oFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set fldr = oFso.GetFolder(sAppdFolder & "\Microsoft\Outlook")
for each fl in fldr.Files
if Right(fl.Name, 4) = ".NK2" then
'Wscript.echo "Will copy " & fl.Name
fl.copy  "\\Server\Outlook\Alex\NK2\" & fl.name
end if
next

Roaming - C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook

Dim fldr
Set oWShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
sAppdFolder = oWShell.RegRead ("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\AppData")
'Wscript.echo sAppdFolder
Set oFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set fldr = oFso.GetFolder(sAppdFolder & "\Microsoft\Outlook")
for each fl in fldr.Files
if Right(fl.Name, 4) = ".NK2" then
'Wscript.echo "Will copy " & fl.Name
fl.copy  "\\Server\Outlook\Alex\NK2\" & fl.name
end if
next

For Signatures:

- C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Signatures
- C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Signatures

Local - C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Signatures

Dim fldr
Set oWShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
sAppdFolder = oWShell.RegRead ("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Local AppData")
Set oFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set fldr = oFso.GetFolder(sAppdFolder & "\Microsoft\Signatures")
'WScript.echo fldr.Path
oWShell.Run  "Xcopy """ & fldr.path & "\*""" &  " ""\\Server\Outlook\Alex\Signatures"" /E/i"

Roaming - C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Signatures

Dim fldr
Set oWShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
sAppdFolder = oWShell.RegRead ("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\AppData")
Set oFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set fldr = oFso.GetFolder(sAppdFolder & "\Microsoft\Signatures")
'WScript.echo fldr.Path
oWShell.Run  "Xcopy """ & fldr.path & "\*""" &  " ""\\Server\Outlook\Alex\Signatures"" /E/i"

Additional Info:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179097.aspx - Office Customization Tool in the 2007 Office system
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc764476.aspx  - Office Customization Tool (OCT) overview

I hope this helps you, and I’m glad to receive any comments or suggestions.

Since there aren't many written sources for sharing categories, I thought it might be useful to discuss a bit on this topic and how can this be achieved in Outlook 2010.

As a background information for versions prior to Outlook 2007 category information was stored in the local registry. There is a binary key, called MasterList, located under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\x.0\Outlook\Categories that contains the information on the categories.

The key will be written only if you customize the Master List.

Since Outlook 2007 the information on categories is stored on the mailbox (more specifically in a Mapi property on the item IPM.Configuration.CategoryList within the Calendar, called PR_ROAMING_XMLSTREAM).

When you will upgrade users to Outlook 2007/2010 from Outlook 2003, each user's categories and flags are still available. Flags, reminders, and labels will be rolled into categories for Outlook 2007/2010. Outlook will migrate category and flag information into the new categories structure.

• Quick flags: When a user starts Outlook 2007/2010 for the first time, all existing quick flags migrate to categories. The same color is used, but date information is not retained. If an item has a reminder flag, the reminder is migrated separately.

• Calendar labels: Labels also migrate when Outlook starts and are added to the user's categories list.

• Other categories: Categories for non-mail items (such as tasks) migrate to Outlook 2007/2010 categories and a random color will be assigned to each category

Color categoryselections are stored in the users default mailbox storage location, which should be the mailbox on the server. This means categories now roam with the user. However, you may need to right click on the root folder, choose Properties and click the button to Upgrade to color categories. This will assign random colors to the categories.

Outlook 2007/2010 will no longer use the registry for a master category list. Instead, they are stored in the default message store (mailbox or pst). For example, if you are setting up a new system and using your old pst, the color categories will be available on the new system.

Although categories are not meant to be shared you might encounter scenarios in which an administrator for a shared mailbox would like to have the color categories visible for all the other users that access the shared mailbox.

The expected behavior is to only see the categories but not the colors.

However, if you want to make also the colors visible for other users there are two methods to achieve this: 

1. Add the shared mailbox as an additional mailbox and provide Reviewer permissions on the Calendar.

This is required as the Category list is stored on the Calendar.

This is how you are seeing the categories for the additional mailbox

2. Add the shared mailbox as an additional Exchange Account.

In this way you will have two category lists, one for each Exchange Account.

For this you need know the credentials of the shared mailbox (unless you have Full Mailbox Access) and have at least Reviewer Permissions on the Calendar, like in method 1.

Note: Adding the additional Exchange Account with delegate access is considered unsupported.

This is how you are seeing the categories for the additional Exchange Account

This is how you are seeing the categories for your own account

For all the methods above, the already categorized items from the shared mailbox will have the color category visible.

To summarize this, there are several options for sharing and managing color categories in Outlook 2010:

1. Adding the shared mailbox as an additional mailbox and provide Reviewer permissions on the Calendar.

2. Adding the shared mailbox as an additional Exchange Account

Each of them have their own advantages and disadvantages, so please review the options and adapt them to your own environment, accordingly.

Please feel free to comment, raise questions or add extra information on the topic.

If there are users in your company that have huge mailboxes and in addition need to log on different machines all the time, you may consider enabling “Download Headers” in order to avoid spending a lot of time doing a full sync of the information from their mailboxes.

In case you were wondering why Outlook is doing a full sync of the messages even after you enable in Define Send/Receive Groups menu the option "Download headers only" for an Outlook cached mode client, this blog can give you an overview about how these two options are intended to work.

More information:

By default, Outlook is Downloading Full Items and on Slow Connection is downloading Only the Headers.

 
The Send/Receive settings will not have any effect when working in cache mode. This is the design behavior as cached mode will just use its own syncing mechanism. The Send/Receive settings will be taken into consideration only when synchronizing in offline mode.

In order to “Download Headers Only” in cached mode, you need to change the Download Preferences to Download Headers. If you manually enable this option under your current profile, you will notice that all the emails you receive will download only the message headers. However, this option has no effect for emails that were already downloaded in your OST before you enabled this option.

There is a GPO that enables the option “Download Headers” for all the users in cached mode. However, for existing profiles this GPO will take action only on new emails and not on emails that were already downloaded in your OST. In order to download only the headers for all the messages you need to create a new Outlook profile.

I added below the the GPO for enabling “Download Header” option in case you consider it as a suitable solution for your environment/users:

1.In Group Policy, load the Outlook 2010 template (Outlk14.adm):

  Office2010

  
2.Under User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Microsoft Office Outlook 2010\Tools| E-mail Accounts\Cached Exchange Mode, double-click Cached Exchange Mode (File | Cached Exchange Mode)

3.Click "Enabled" to configure the policy and select “Download Headers”
4.Click Apply- OK.
5.After the policy is enabled please check on the test machine if the below key is added

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\14.0\outlook\cachedmode

 "CachedExchangeMode"=dword:00000001

6.After applying the GPO “Download Preferences” should be grayed out

7.Configure a new Outlook profile and you will notice that all messages will download headers only.

Please feel free to comment or add any suggestions.

Happy Outlooking!

Since working with the Outlook calendar, and more specifically with meetings, it is very likely that the majority of us have encountered situations in which updates to meetings are not triggering the same type of message.

And what I mean by this is that depending on the type of changes that we make to a meeting, this will generate either an informational or a full update, and the information will be changed or not, accordingly, on the attendee’s calendar.

As I have discovered a good bit of documentation on this topic, I think the below article can be useful in either troubleshooting calendar issues or in understanding the expected behavior in such scenarios.

In earlier versions of Outlook, you could easily run into one or more of the following problems when sending a meeting update:

• Invitees have to reaccept meetings unnecessarily.
• Attendees do not see anything different with the meeting and they delete the request thinking they have already dealt with it.
• The invitee or recipient list does not handle duplicate entries and distribution lists elegantly. Consequently, invitees may receive cancellations and updates at the same time.
• Attendees do not always have an up-to-date invitee list because updates are not sent correctly.

Starting with Outlook 2007, meeting updates are classified as one of two types: a full update or an informational update.

The difference between these two is worth discussing, as Outlook uses each type in a very specific scenario. Basically, this is the topic for this blog, with a focus on describing the scenarios that trigger either a full or informational update. Additionally, you will learn how to make Outlook send a specific type of update, depending on the meetings properties that you want to change.

What is a full update?

A full update is practically a new meeting invitation to the same event, replacing the old properties with the new ones. Full updates are sent when one or more of the following properties are changed:

• Start Date/Time
• End Date/Time
• Recurrence

A Full update has the following characteristics:

• An organizer must send out the update. They cannot change and then save certain properties on the meeting without sending an update.
• The attendee must reaccept the updated meeting.
• If the receiving attendee does not have the meeting on their Calendar, the meeting is created on the Calendar (as if it is a new meeting request).
• Changes to the meeting are highlighted in color in the attendee’s meeting invitation and the public properties on the meeting are overwritten on the attendee’s calendar item.

In a few words, in Outlook 2007 and 2010 you can no longer make critical changes on a meeting without sending an update. For example if you attempt to delete a meeting, the Send Cancellation form automatically appears. You cannot save this change without clicking the Send Cancellation button to send the cancelation email.

When you receive a full update from the organizer, you are requested to respond to the meeting.

What is an Informational update?

An Informational update is an update that does not require any action from the attendee. As the name states, it was designed to simply inform the attendee of specific changes that have occurred on the meeting. Informational updates have the following characteristics.

• The update does not have to be reaccepted by attendees.
• The Free/Busy status of the meeting is unchanged.
• Changes to the meeting are highlighted in color in the attendee’s meeting invitation and the Public properties in the meeting are overwritten on the attendee’s calendar item.
• If the meeting is not on the Calendar of the receiving attendee, the meeting update behaves as a Full meeting update.

 If you receive an informational update and the invite is processed, the required action is clearly spelled out in the message. If you are viewing the message in the Reading Pane, the informational message is clearly highlighted in the invite. The informational message appears in the light blue box in the following image:

If you click the No Response Required button in the Reading Pane, you are notified that your calendar has been updated and the meeting update is automatically deleted.

If you open the invite for an informational update, the Information Bar clearly states that your calendar has been updated and that there is no need to respond to the update.

Please note that the Accept, Tentative, and Decline buttons are available. However, you are not required to respond to the update.

In brief, here is a table describing the properties that can change on a meeting and what kind of update do they trigger:

There are also two types of properties on the meetings: public and private.

Public and private properties of a meeting are properties that exist when a meeting is created. For the most part, as an attendee you can change these properties for any meeting that you have accepted or tentatively accepted. The difference is that any of your previous edits to Public properties are overwritten if the meeting organizer changes any of them and sends you an update to the meeting (regardless of whether it is an informational or full update).

Private properties are those that you can edit on your local copy of the meeting and that will not be changed when the meeting organizer sends you a meeting update.

There is one exception to the above rule, which is the following. Free/Busy status is the only private property that can change but only with a full update:

So whether the attendee makes a change on any of these private properties, they will behave as described above.

A full update will change the free/busy time, whether or not the attendee previously changed it.

The sensitivity and the reminder time are never changed, except if the attendee has not yet accepted the initial meeting request before receiving the update to it.

To exemplify this let's take a scenario with userA as organizer and userB, userC as attendees.

Note: I also used the public property Importance in this scenario.

UserA sends a meeting request to userB and userC with Free/Busy as tentative, private, high importance and 15 minutes reminder.

Both attendees accept the meeting.

UserB leaves the meeting as it is, however userC changes the sensitivity to public, the importance to normal, the free/busy to busy and the reminder to 10 minutes, after which he saves and closes the meeting.

UserA, as organizer, changes the end time, to another half an hour, free/busy to free, reminder to 30 minutes, importance to low and the sensitivity remains to private.

Since the end time was changed, this will trigger a full update. However on the attendees, after reaccepting the meeting we will see the following:

UserB will have the time updated, importance to low, free/busy to free, reminder to 15 minutes and sensitivity to private.

UserC will have the time updated, importance to low, free/busy to free, reminder to 10 minutes and sensitivity to public.

To go a bit further with this topic, there are also some ways of checking if the update received for a meeting was informational or full.

The MAPI property Named Prop Name=0x0026 stamped on the meeting update indicates the type of meeting request or update being sent. You can use MFCMAPI to examine the property.

• Download and install MFCMAPI form the following location:
  http://mfcmapi.codeplex.com/releases/view/73290

Note: You should download the latest version but please use the same bit-version you have in Outlook (32 or 64 bit)

• Open MFCMAPI
• Go to Session -> Logon and Display Store table
• Double-click on the user’s mailbox
• Expand the Root and then
• if the profile is configured in Online mode expand Top of Information Store
• if the profile is configured in Cached mode expand IPM_Subtree
• Right-click on Inbox and select Open Contents Table
• From the window that pops-up locate the item in the top pane. The MAPI Properties of the item are at the bottom pane
• Look at the bottom pane to locate the Named Prop Name 0x0026 property.

 The values for this property are listed in the following table:

Hope this was helpful in understanding and troubleshooting issues of this kind.

Feel free to comment or add any remarks to the topic and keep on outlooking!