Need to Modify the Subject Need to Modify the Subject of a received email or fax?
Have you ever needed to modify the subject, or other field in a received
message? Here's how:
Switch to the folder in Outlook
Click View, Current View, Customize Current View
Click the "Other Settings" button
On the right side of the dialog box, about two lines down, click "Allow
in-cell editing"
Click OK twice
Now when ever you click or tab to a field, the text will be editable.
Automatically Address an E-mail Message in Outlook 2002
If you send e-mail to the same people frequently, you can automate the
process of creating and addressing the message. With Microsoft OutlookŪ, you
can add a custom toolbar button that lists the people to whom you send e-mail
most often. Then, with one click, you can create a new message that's
addressed to the person you want to send it to. And, if you regularly send
e-mail with the same subject line, such as a weekly report, you can also
create a message that has the subject line filled in.
There are two parts to creating a custom list of recipients. First, create
the toolbar button. Then, add the e-mail addresses and subject lines to it.
Create a custom toolbar button
On the Tools menu, click Customize, and then click the
Commands tab.
In the Categories list, click New Menu.
In the Commands list, click New Menu and drag it to the
toolbar. When the pointer looks like an I-beam, release the mouse button.
On the toolbar, right-click the New Menu button, and in the
Name box on the shortcut menu, type a name for the new toolbar button.
Add e-mail addresses and subject lines
In the Categories list mentioned in step 2 above, click File.
In the Commands list, click Mail Message and drag it to
the custom menu button that you added to the toolbar. When you rest the
pointer over the custom button, a gray box appears. Drop the Mail Message
command onto the gray box. (If you are adding a subsequent command, no gray
box will appear. Drop the command onto the most recent command you added.)
If you want to use a different icon, choose the command from the Commands
list that has the icon you want. For example, if you add a distribution
list, you can use the Distribution List command to get the
distribution list icon.
On the toolbar, right-click the Mail Message command, and in the
Name box on the shortcut menu, type a name for the person,
distribution list, or alias you're assigning to the command.
Then, on the shortcut menu, point to Assign Hyperlink, and then
click Open.
Under Link to, click E-mail Address.
In the E-mail address box, enter the e-mail address of the
person, distribution list, or alias you want to assign to the command. If
you want this automatically addressed message to also have a standard
subject line, such as Status Report, type it in the Subject
box.
Repeat these steps for each person, group, or standard subject line you
want to add to the button.
Great Outlook features to organize your Inbox
Microsoft offers a number of self-help tutorials. One of our favorites is
Organize Your Inbox
How to Create a PST (Archive) File
On the Outlook File menu, click
Exit.
Click Start, point to Settings,
and click Control Panel.
Double-click the Mail (or Mail and Fax)
icon.
On the Services tab, click Show
Profiles.
Click to select the profile you want to
add a new personal folders (.pst) file to and click
Properties.
On the Services tab, click Add.
In the Available Information Services
list, click Personal Folders, and then
click OK.
In Create/Open Personal Folders File type a name
for your new personal folders (.pst) file with a .pst
extension, and then click Open.
In Create Microsoft Personal Folders
you may change the name that will be listed in Outlook for
this Personal Folders file, and click OK,
OK, and then click Close.
When you restart Outlook, you will see the name of the new
personal folders (.pst) file in the Folders List. Click the +
to expand the folder's list.
You can then simply drag e-mail messages you wish to keep,
into the Inbox under the personal folder you just created. ( You
can use the Ctrl key to select multiple messages that are not
contiguous, or the Shift key to select multiple contiguous
messages.)
***NOTE****
IF you use GAPC.Net's Exchange Server, do NOT move e-mail
messages to personal folders that you need to access on
multiple machines, or need to access through Outlook Web Access
(OWA). Messages that you move to a personal folder remain
ONLY on the computer that you create the personal folder on.
Backing up or deleting items using Auto-Archive
Your Microsoft Outlook mailbox grows as you create and receive items. To keep your mailbox manageable,
you need another place to store — archive — the old items that are important but not frequently used.
You also need a way to automatically move those old items to the archive location and to discard items whose content has expired
and is no longer valid. Auto-Archive takes care of these processes for you.
Auto-Archive is on by default and runs automatically at scheduled intervals, clearing out old and expired items from folders.
Old items are those that reach the archiving age you specify, and may include such things as the original e-mail you
received with the goals for a project you're assigned to. Expired items are mail and meeting items whose content is
no longer valid after a certain date, such as a meeting you had four months ago that still appears on your calendar.
Although an expiration date is optional, you can define it at the time you create the item or at a later date. When the item expires,
it's unavailable and has a strike-out mark through it.
What Auto-Archive does with items
Auto-Archive can do one or both of the following for items in a folder: Permanently delete expired items;
delete or archive old items to an archive file. The archive file is a special type of data file.
The first time Auto-Archive runs, Outlook creates the archive file automatically.
After Outlook archives items for the first time, you can access items in the file directly from Archive Folders in your Outlook Folder List.
If you want, you can have separate archive files for individual folders.
When you open Archive Folders, you'll see that Outlook maintains your existing folder structure. If there is a parent folder
above the folder you chose to archive, the parent folder is created in the archive file, but items within the parent folder are
not archived. In this way, an identical folder structure exists between the archive file and your mailbox.
Folders are left in place after being archived, even if they are empty. You work with the items the same way you work with items in your
main mailbox. If you decide you want archived items moved back into your main mailbox, you can import all the items from the archive file
into their original folders or into other folders you specify, or you can manually move or copy individual items.
Changing how Auto-Archive works
There are two sets of Auto-Archive settings: global settings and per-folder settings.
The global settings — called default settings — determine whether Auto-Archive runs at all and what it does by default with the
items in any Outlook folder (except Contacts, which is not affected by Auto-Archive). The per-folder settings override the default settings
so you can Auto-Archive individual folders differently.
If you don't specify Auto-Archive settings for a specific folder, the folder automatically uses the default settings.
Default settings and per-folder settings apply to the current mailbox only. If you want, you can also manually archive items.
Windows Tips
Shutting down Windows 2000 in an emergency
On occasion, you might find that you need to shut down Windows as soon as possible. Although you can accomplish
this task simply by powering off the computer, Microsoft offers a way for you to shut down the computer quickly that's less harmful
to the Windows 2000 operating system.
Here's how: Begin by pressing [Ctrl][Alt][Delete] to display the Windows Security dialog box.
Next, hold down the [Ctrl] key and click Shut Down.
Click OK to confirm that you want to perform an emergency shutdown
of the computer.
Be aware that when you perform an emergency shutdown, you won't be prompted to save any open documents. To avoid losing your work,
make sure that you save anything you're currently working on (if possible) before performing an emergency shutdown.
Saving a List of Window's Shared Folders
If you run into a situation where you must reinstall Windows 2000 on a computer, you'll lose all the shared folders
and their permissions.
You can make reconfiguring shared folders and their permissions easier after reinstalling Windows 2000 by generating
a list of the shared folders, their share names, and users' permissions beforehand.
To do so, begin by opening Registry Editor. Next, navigate to the following key:
Choose Registry | Restore, and then select the file from your floppy disk.
When prompted, click OK to confirm that you want to overwrite the computer's current shared folder information.
Close Registry Editor and restart the computer. You should now see the same shared folders on the computer that you had prior to
reinstalling Windows.
Forcing Group Policy Update
In order to balance the workload on your domain controllers, the changes you make to group policies aren't immediately applied.
If you want the changes you make to be available immediately, you must force a refresh of group policy by using the secedit command-line utility.
To use it, begin by opening a Command Prompt window. Next, enter the following command:
secedit /refreshpolicy /enforce
This command refreshes both the computer and user settings in the group policy. If you want to refresh only the computer or
the user settings (but not both), use the appropriate following command:
By default Remote Desktop (RDT) creates a new session when you login via the GUI.
To connect to the active console (the actual session running on the computer's CRT) perform the following steps:
Click start
Click Run
Type "mstsc -v:servername /F /console"
(without the quote) replace servername with the name of your server.
Internet Explorer Downloads
One of the benefits of having a broadband Internet connection is the speed at which I can
download files. However, by default, Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) limits the number of simultaneous
downloads to two. You can edit the registry to work around this limitation and allow as many simultaneous
downloads as your connection can handle.
Start regedt32 and navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Internet Settings registry subkey.
Select New, DWORD Value from the Edit menu
Create two new DWORD values: MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server, with a value of 0000000a (or whichever value you want)
MaxConnectionsPerServer, with a value of 0000000a (or whichever value you want).
What happened to my IE Status Bar in XP?
In many cases Internet Explorer's status bar, the one at the bottom of the screen,
will only appear the first time IE is opened. Where are the steps to have it present for all IE windows.
Open Internet Explorer
Select View | Status Bar
Press hold the ctrl key while clicking the X in the top right corner
Open My Computer
Select View | Status Bar
Go to Tools | Folder Options and select the View tab
Click Apply to All Folder, confirm the dialog then close Windows Explorer
Change the Windows Log On Screensaver
The logon screen saver is the screen saver you see when no one is logged onto the computer.
That default Windows XP logon screen saver isn't very interesting, as all it does is flash a banner that says
"Windows XP" in different places every second or two. How about using a screen saver of your choice?
You'll have to edit the Registry (and exercise the usual caution when doing so) but it's not difficult;
just follow these steps:
Click Start and then click Run.
Type Regedt32 into the Open text box and click OK.
Navigate to the following Registry key: HKEY USERS\DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop
Look in the right pane of the Registry Editor and find the entry for SCRNSAVE.EXE. Double click on it.
In the Edit String dialog box, replace the logon.scr entry with the name of the screen saver you want to use.
For example, if you want to use the 3D Pipes screen saver, type in sspipes.scr.
It's important that your screen saver be in the WINDOWS\System32 folder, so make sure it is before you
do this (if the screensaver you want to use is in a different location, you can copy it to this folder).
Click OK to save the changes.
Close the Registry Editor
The new logon screen saver will be used the next time you restart the computer.
File and Folder Name Completion
The Command Prompt offers an invaluable file and folder name completion feature that, remarkably, is not
enabled by default. If you enable this feature, you can save yourself the trouble of typing long paths or file names.
If you start a command string and then press the completion character, Command Prompt proposes the next file or
folder name that's consistent with what you've typed so far.
For example, to switch to a folder that starts with the letter Q, you can type cd q and press the folder
folder-name completion character as many times as necessary until the folder you want appears.
You can turn on file and folder name completion for a particular Command Prompt session by starting Command Prompt
with /F:on. (click Start | Run and enter cmd /F:on or create a shortcut) If you do that, Conman Prompt uses Curled
for folder-name completion and Curl for file completion.
Alternatively, you can turn this feature on permanently-for either the current user account or all
accounts at the current computer-by editing the registry. The REG-DWORD values CompletionChar and PathCompletionChar
in HKLM \Software Microsoft\ Command Processor specify the file and folder completion characters, for all user accounts
at the current computer. The corresponding Values in HKCU\ Software\ Microsoft\ Command Processor do the same for the
current account.
In all cases, the character should be specified as a hexadecimal value. For example use ,0x4 for Ctrl+D, 0x6
for Ctrl+F, 0x9 for Tab, 0xC for Ctrl+L, and so on. To disable a completion character, specify a value of 0x20 the
space character) or 0x0
If completion characters are specified in both HKLM and HKCU, the HKCU settings take precedence.
If you start Cmd with /F:on, Command Prompt uses Ctrl+D and Ctrl+F as completion characters, regardless of your
registry settings. If you start Cmd with /F:off, completion characters are disabled, regardless of your registry
settings.
