Windows and Outlook

Last Updated on April 18, 2017 by Dave Farquhar

Outta here. I’m off to a Windows 2000 class in Kansas City later today. Class actually starts Monday, but I’m making an extended weekend out of it, leaving this afternoon, and coming back sometime on Tuesday.
No e-mail while I’m gone, but I’ll have Web access of course, so if you’ve got something to ask me, go ahead and use the comments here or the forum. I won’t be able to read mail until Wednesday.

Windows and Outlook. An old friend wrote in this week. She was implementing some of the advice in the first chapter of Optimizing Windows, and she got to the place where I said to uninstall anything you don’t use. So, logically, she said to herself, “I don’t use Outlook Express since I have Outlook,” so she uninstalled Outlook Express.

Then her contacts list stopped working.

If you use Outlook, you use Outlook Express because Outlook uses code from Outlook Express (and Internet Explorer) extensively. It makes no sense, and you’d think Windows would leave the DLLs from Outlook Express that Outlook needs when you uninstall Outlook Express, but evidently it’s not that smart. A shame, but typical.

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3 thoughts on “Windows and Outlook

  • May 12, 2001 at 11:58 am
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    Don’t be too hard on the instructor of the W2K class.

    Regarding Outlook Express. For good or bad it would seem that OE is considered part of the operating system. Hence application developers, such as those who wrote Outlook, expect the DLLs they need to already be there since they need to be there since it’s part of the operating system.

  • May 16, 2001 at 11:29 pm
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    That’s a real shame, because OE is an optional component, like CD Player. Maybe developers assume CD Player is there too, but neither is essential to operation. It would be nice if they would double-check, especially seeing as we’re talking a Microsoft product here, and Microsoft were the ones who made OE optional.

  • February 18, 2002 at 1:17 pm
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    Sloppy programming is the key word. It seems like most developers these days have forgotten how to write good, structured code that isn’t way too fat. And they’re taking shorcuts that should NEVER be taken (eg: assume that Outlook Express, or some other such component, will already be installed).

    Also seems like Microsoft is increasingly moving to expecting (and indeed almost forcing) end-users to compute the way M$ envisions computing — all in the name of "making it easier". Controls to turn off, or remove unwanted functionality keep getting buried deeper and deeper.

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