Microsoft Outlook really sucks sometimes

Tom Keating : VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Tom Keating
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Microsoft Outlook really sucks sometimes

Microsoft Outlook 2003 is my primary email client in the office.I've used Outlook for over 12 years, heck before it was even called Microsoft Outlook. I don't even remember its original name. Was it Windows Messenging? I think the server portion was Microsoft Mail (MS Mail?). In any event, here's my pet-peeve with Outlook - it periodically crashes and all my open emails I was working on are now closed when I go back into Outlook.

Now I should put a disclaimer on stating Outlook crashes periodically. Outlook is actually pretty stable and doesn't crash on me very often. I'm not even sure if Outlook is to blame since as you can imagine I load more software on my PC than the average person. In fact, I suspect Yahoo Desktop Search, which indexes my email is to blame. It's a real processor hog. But even so, why is it that Outlook can't remember which emails I had open when I reload the application? :@

I get tons of email, so it's impossible to remember which emails I was working on. At any given time I have 5-10 email windows open with the intention of eventually replying, or using the information in the email for a blog or some other purpose. It's essentially my daily "To Do" list. Though these emails can stay open for several days until I complete them. If I have to reboot, I simply mark the messages as Unread, then reboot and re-open them.

I should mention that since I receive so much email I gave up organizing my Inbox. It's just too time-consuming to organize each email when I can simply use Yahoo Desktop Search to find an email. Thus almost all of my email stays in my Inbox which is currently 10,156 items. Thus, when Outlook crashes, trying to find which emails I had open is pretty difficult without going back and re-reading weeks worth of emails. Even sorting by date, sometimes I have emails open from weeks or months ago with information I am working on.

Why is that if the Firefox browser crashes and I have the SessionSaver plugin installed, it remembers all my open tabs (websites) and re-opens them the nexttime I launch Firefox? Same with Avante Browser. Even Windows will remember which Windows Explorer windows you had open when you reboot. In my opinion Outlook should have a "remember open emails" feature as well when it crashes.

Whomever develops it I'll gladly pay them $200 for it.


P.S. If I never responded to your rmail, perhaps, just perhaps your email was closed due to an Outlook crash and I forgot to re-open it. So I'm probably not ignoring you! :D



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