Outlook Error Logging Into Windows

When logging into Windows you receive an error that says, “Either there is no default mail client or the current mail client cannot fulfill the messaging request. Please run Microsoft Outlook and set it as the default mail client.”

See KB813745.

Emails Going Directly to Deleted Items Folder

Here’s a quick one.

Is a user reporting that some emails are going directly into the Deleted Items folder? Check the following things.

• In Outlook is there a rule created causing the email to move?
• In Outlook is the email conversation(s) in question being Ignored? Link
• In Exchange is AutomateProcessing set to AutoAccept? Run the PowerShell command below.

Get-CalendarProcessing -identity username | fl

White Box Where Picture Should Be

Description: In Outlook when inserting a picture into the body of an email you may see a white box with a black outline instead of the picture.

Solution: Do the following to resolve the issue.

1. Open a new email.
2. Click File>Options.
3. On the left click Mail.
4. In the Compose messages section click Editor Options.
5. On the left click Advanced.
6. In the Display e-mail content section uncheck Show picture placeholders.

Outlook 2010 Hangs While Opening an ICS File

From my home network I signed up to watch a webinar. As is typical when registering for a webinar I was provided the option to download an ICS file to save to my Outlook calendar. I clicked the link to open the ICS file & Outlook 2010 (which was already open) hung for about 3 minutes then finally displayed the appointment.

I closed the calendar item then clicked the link again only this time I saved it to my desktop. I double clicked the ICS file & same thing. Outlook hung for about 3 minutes.

I run Process Monitor & open the ICS file again to get a capture. After the appointment opens I stop the capture. I set the filter to only show Outlook.exe. In a case like this where I’m not really sure what’s going on I go through each of the utilities on the Tools menu. Nothing is really jumping out at me until I open Network Summary.

What’s with Outlook connecting to these various IPs? I flip over to Process Explorer, open the Properties of the running Outlook process, & select the TCP/IP tab. I open the ICS file again. To my surprise I see Outlook making all these connections for the next few minutes.

Well this should not be happening. My Outlook profile is configured to connect to a CAS array which does not have a public DNS record. I run a DIG to see what’s getting resolved. (I’m using alternate info but the results are the same with my production FQDN.)

Yeah, that’s not right. I should be getting a status of NXDOMAIN & no answers.

So what’s going on? DNS Hijacking or as Cox Communications likes to call it…”Enhanced Error Results”. I’ll post some links below for further reading but in a nutshell, DNS hijacking means that when you browse to a website (i.e. query DNS for an FQDN) that does not exist the DNS server returns an IP address instead of an NXDOMAIN error.  Since you received an IP address your browser will go to that site. A chill should have just gone down your spine.

In my case Cox was gracious enough to post an article on how to “opt-out of enhanced error results”. I have to hard code two alternate DNS servers in my router. Once I made the change & renewed my IP settings I did another DIG.

Much better. I open the ICS file & it pops right up. “Problem” solved I guess. Of course I wish Outlook would handle this a little better. I have been unable to find a KB article addressing this issue but if you know of one please leave a comment. One day when I have some spare time I might open up a case with Microsoft about it.

Links & what not:

Now before any DNS hijacking huggers out there say anything I’m well aware of this draft RFC but it’s expired therefore RFC 1035 & 2308 take precedence. Even ICANN thinks it’s a bad idea. See here & here.

You can also read up on the subject here.

Import NK2 file into Outlook 2010

I’m going throught a little Office 2010 upgrade at work & I ran into a situation where I needed to import a user’s Outlook Autocomplete cache (the nickname file or NK2). Found a nice little KB article that did the trick.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/980542

Error Downloading Offline Address Book

I noticed that when VPN’d into work & trying to download the ‘Offline Address Book’ in Outlook I received an error that said:

Task ‘users@domain.com’ reported error (0×80190197) : ‘The operation failed.’

With a proxy configured on the VPN’s connection in IE I had to also add the FQDN of the Exchange server to the proxy bypass list.

• Tools>Internet Options.
• Select the Connections tab.
• Select the VPN connection & select Settings.
• Configure the proxy settings & click Advanced.
• In the Exceptions box type the FQDN of the Exchange server (i.e. mail.domain.com).

Exchange 2010 Transition Gotcha

I’ve been working on a transition from Exchange 2003 to 2010 for the past few months. I did a lot of testing in a lab and caught several things in the lab that saved tons of time in the production rollout. Unfortunately, during the production rollout I ran into an issue that I was not prepared for. I still have Terminal Servers using Outlook 2003. I noticed the following behavior:

• Outgoing emails stay in the Outbox for about 1 minute.
• New email arrival takes about 1 minute.
• Items that are deleted don’t disappear for about 1 minute.
• If you try to delete the “deleted” email again you get an error that says, “Unknown error” then the “deleted” email goes away.
• Items that are moved to another folder take about 1 minute to move.

There is a known issue using Outlook 2003 in online mode (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2009942). The KB article has a very good technical explanation. There are 2 workarounds mentioned in the KB article but there are really 3. Method 2 is not an option because I cannot run Outlook in cached mode on a Terminal Server. I implemented the registry fix in method 1 setting it to the lowest value. While it does speed it up from 60 seconds to 5, it is still going to cause a negative user experience. The third options is of course upgrading to Outlook 2007 or higher.

So for right now my transition is in a holding pattern until I can update all my Terminal Servers to the latest version of Office. Good thing I only moved over a few users that are OK with dealing with the problem until then. Keep this in mind if you are moving to Exchange 2010.

Dictionary Error Sending Email

Description – When sending an email in Outlook you receive a message that says, “No custom dictionary exists. Would you like to create one?” When you click Yes you receive an error that says, “An error occurred while creating the custom dictionary.”

Cause – The user’s custom dictionary setting in Word is incorrect.

Solution – Open Word. Click Tools>Options>Spelling & Grammar. Click Dictionaries. Click Add. Select CUSTOM.DIC & click OK. Click OK through all other windows. Now try to send the email again.

Note – The default path for the custom.dic file is C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Proof.

Add a Hidden Mailbox as an Additional Mailbox in Outlook

Use ADSI Edit to get the legacyExchangeDN for the Mailbox. Use the normal steps to add an additional mailbox in Outlook only instead of typing the username, type the legacyExchangeDN. The legacyExchangeDN will be in a format like:

/o=<ORGNAME>/ou=<Administrative Group>/cn=Recipients/cn=Username

 

To get the legacyDN use the following steps:

1. On the Exchange Server, open ADSIEdit.
2. Browse to the location of the account. The structure will resemble the OU structure.
3. Right click the account & select Properties.
4. Scroll down to the legacyDN attribute.
5. Copy it to the clipboard & paste as needed.