Outlook 2000 and 2003 mixed environment group issues

[clancyfan]

I've been searching for days on this one and have yet to find an answer.

I am on a network of about 18 users all running Outlook 2000 with and Exchange 2000 server. A few of us are evaluating Outlook 2003 and have noticed a pretty major issue when emailing groups.

When you send an email to a group such as "All Staff" from an Outlook 2003 client, and the recipients responds to that message by using "Reply All" to include the "All Staff" group, the original recipient receives the reply but the message to the "All Staff" group is rejected and the Exchange server says the address does not exist.

I've figured out why it's happening and cannot get over that Microsoft would be so stupid, if indeed I am seeing the problem correctly. What happens is when a message is sent to a group from the 2003 client, the group name is sent with quotations around it, and when the 2000 client responds it responds with the quotations and the Exchange server rejects it. If you remove the quotations, it works.

This is ridiculous! I guess it's Microsoft's way to get you to upgrade all clients to the new version and not just a few at a time.

 

[tf1]

That's not the only problem with a mixed environment either. I know that you entitled to use the current version of Outlook with Exchange server, however, bad experiences would suggest that you always keep the same version of all Office Applications on a workstation. Outlook2003 will not integrate with Office 2000. No Word as email editor, no mailmerge and a whole load of minor gafs make it a miserable choice.


Regards: tf1

 

[clancyfan]

Yeah, I have already realized the issue of not being able to use Word as your email editor. Yet another way to force a full Office 2003 upgrade I guess.

We're just in evaluation mode right now so I don't think it's a big deal but it's good to get these issues figured out before a full roll-out.

 

[KenWright]

Just for info:-

Cribbed from one of the MS OL MVPs

It's the same no matter the version - if outlook is not the same version as office, no office envelope features. The most frequent complaint is the loss of word as the editor - most people can survive or make do pretty good
without the other missing features. so, if you aren't using word, it's mostly just an inconvenience.

Mail merges need to start in word, not outlook.
New letter to contact fails.
File, Send to, Mail recipient fails (this uses the office envelope) but mail recipient (as attachment) works.

Regards
Ken..............

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