Outlook 2011 SP2 woes
I noticed today that Microsoft, it is supernatural wisdom, decided it would be best for one and all if it moved the Script location.
Pre-SP2 location:
Documents>Microsoft User Data>Outlook Script Menu Items
Post-SP2 location:
Home>Library>Application Support>Microsoft>Office>Outlook Script Menu Items
Note that the user “Library” is hidden in Lion. Yet another brilliant move by our beloved Microsoft.
I’d also like to add that the new Outlook breaks multilingual tricks that once worked. Most people couldn’t care less, but for those of us who live outside the US and are married to a spouse that speaks another language, the tricks were very helpful. Microsoft, being the “we know what’s best for you” company they are, believes households should speak a single language. This is why, for example, you cannot buy Microsoft Office 2011 Mac “English” and then switch OS X’s language to make Office switch to that other language. If you buy the English edition of Office 2011, it remains in English regardless of the Language preference you choose in OS X. But the trick that once worked was, if you purchased the English version (Business edition, which includes Outlook), assuming you also have the other language version of Office too (say Japanese, for instance), you could install that other language version over the English version and then get both languages in the same set of apps. That would make Office run like it should have from the beginning – empowering you the user to switch the language of Office in accordance with the UI language you prefer to use in OS X (as you can with just about any other app for the Mac). That way my wife could see the Japanese UI in office in her OS X user account and I would get English. But now that is broken in Outlook. With SP2, even if you install the Japanese Office over your English Office install, only one language works. If you try to launch Outlook in the other OS X UI language, it will give you a database error and you cannot rebuild or create a new database to fix it. I even tried copying the Outlook SP2 app over from a separate install (on another drive) to see if that would be a fix, but it wasn’t – Microsoft is breaking this functionality via some means other than just the Outlook app. A sneaky and underhanded trick on Microsoft’s part if you ask me.
So SP2 takes an enormous step back in terms of multilingual freedom for users. I can only sympathize with Michael Tsai over having to modify his fine product only because of the continued idiocy of Microsoft. If I didn’t like Outlook so much (versus Apple Mail), I’d ditch it in a heartbeat. Even with Michael’s newest scripts, there are still some slowdowns (which I’ve reported in other threads here), which I blame Microsoft for. Not having read about similar sluggishness when SpamSieve is used with other email clients, I can only assume those slowdowns are exclusive to Microsoft Outlook.
Anyway, thank you again, Michael Tsai for staying on top of the game.
**UPDATE…
**
I found another problem just now. Junk mail is being dumped into the wrong folder on my IMAP accounts. The rules I setup previously have not changed though. I had a rule that following the “Set Category” rule that used to throw all the mail with the category of “Junk” or “Uncertain Junk” folder tied to my IMAP “INBOX.” But now there is a new folder at the top of my IMAP heirarchy named “Spam” and all junk mail is getting thrown in there. That remains true even after I delete that “Spam” folder. It keeps getting recreated and junk mail gets dumped inside it. I have Outlook’s Junk Mail Protection switched off (“None” setting), so I know that is not the root cause. I never had this problem prior to SP2.
FORUM NOTE: I was getting “Gateway” and “500 Internal Server” errors when trying to post several hours ago. I don’t get those errors now, but performance in this forum is very, very slow today.