Microsoft Outlook or Outlook (full name Microsoft Office Outlook since Outlook 2003) is a personal information manager from Microsoft, and is part of the Microsoft Office suite.

Although often used mainly as an e-mail application, it also includes a Calendar, Task Manager, Contact Manager, note taking, a journal and web browsing.

It can be used as a stand-alone application, but can also operate in conjunction with Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to provide enhanced functions for multiple users in an organization, such as shared mailboxes and calendars, Exchange public folders, Sharepoint lists and meeting time allocation.

Versions

Outlook replaced Microsoft's previous scheduling and mail program, Schedule+ and Exchange Client.

Versions of Microsoft Outlook include:

Name	Version Number	Release Date	Notes
Outlook for MS-DOS	-	-	Bundled with Exchange Server 5.5
Outlook for Windows 3.x	-	-	Bundled with Exchange Server 5.5
Outlook for Macintosh	-	-	Bundled with Exchange Server 5.5
Outlook 97	8.0	January 16, 1997	Included in Office 97 and also bundled with Exchange Server 5.5.
Outlook 98	8.5	June 21, 1998	Freely distributed with books and magazines for coping with newest Internet standard such as HTML mail
Outlook 2000	9.0	June 7, 1999	Included in Office 2000 and also bundled with Exchange 2000 Server.
Outlook 2002	10	May 31, 2001	Included in Office XP.
Office Outlook 2003	11	October 21, 2003	Included in Office 2003 and also bundled with Exchange Server 2003.
Office Outlook 2007	12	November 30, 2006	Included in Office 2007, except Office Home and Student edition.

Outlook 98 and Outlook 2000 could be installed in one of two configurations:

• Internet Mail Only or IMO mode: A lighter application mode with specific emphasis on POP3 accounts and IMAP accounts and including a lightweight Fax application.
• Corporate Workgroup or CW mode: A full MAPI client with specific emphasis on Microsoft Exchange accounts.

Microsoft also released several versions of Outlook for the Apple Macintosh; however, most mail features were disabled after Office 98. After Office 98, Entourage replaced Outlook on Macintosh systems, although in 2001 Microsoft released Outlook 2001 for Mac to allow Classic users to access Exchange servers. Over the past few years, Microsoft has improved Entourage to provide Mac users with a Mac OS X-compatible Exchange client, though it does not have the entire functionality provided by Outlook.

Outlook 2007

Outlook 2007 was available in retail stores at the end of January 2007. A trial is available for download on Office Online. New features in Outlook 2007 include:

• A to-do bar added to the shell UI that shows a snapshot of the user's upcoming appointments and active tasks for better time and project management.
• Improved calendar views that display the tasks due below each day on the week view and supports overlaying multiple calendars.
• Integrated RSS aggregator
• 'Instant Search' through a context indexer based search engine with Windows Desktop Search
• Enhanced integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server
• New programmability features
• Ability to publish calendars in Internet Calendar format to Microsoft Office Online or to a WebDAV server
• Preview Handler extension for previewing email attachment without leaving Outlook

Internet standards compliance

HTML rendering

Outlook 2007 was the first Outlook to switch from Internet Explorer HTML rendering to Microsoft Word 2007 HTML rendering. This means HTML and CSS items not handled by Word are no longer supported. On the other hand, HTML messages composed in Word will look more or less as they appeared to the author.

This most affects those publishing newsletters, because they frequently use intricate HTML and/or CSS to form their layout. For example, forms can no longer be embedded in e-mail.

Calendar compatibility

Outlook does not fully support data and syncing specifications for calendaring and contacts, such as iCalendar, CalDAV, SyncML and vCard 3.0. Outlook 2007 claims to be fully iCalendar compliant; however, it does not support all core objects, such as VTODO, VJOURNAL. Also, Outlook supports vCard 2.1 and does not support multiple contacts in the vCard format as a single file. Outlook has also been criticized for having proprietary "Outlook extensions" to these Internet standards. It supports offline storage files up to 2GB in size.

Security concerns

As part of its Trustworthy Computing initiative, Microsoft took corrective steps to fix Outlook's reputation in Office Outlook 2003. Among the most publicized security features are that Office Outlook 2003 does not automatically load images in HTML e-mails or permit opening executable attachements by default, and includes a built-in Junk Mail filter. Service Pack 2 has augmented these features and adds an anti-Phishing filter.

This release was well received, and regarded as the primary driver of Office upgrades among business users.. However, it still used Internet Explorer as its renderer of HTML content, a product whose security flaws are well documented and ongoing. Some defects in IE can be exploited by malicious emails. Outlook 2007 has switched to using the Microsoft Word HTML renderer to avoid this - although the change created its own problems. In addition, unlike other email programs, Outlook does not allow views of HTML source code of messages in a straightforward manner. While this may encourage the purchase of additional security measures (and therefore promote the software industry), it prevents IT professionals from directly searching for malicious code when cookie-cutter solutions prove futile.

Outlook Add-ins

(Other possible and frequently used names: Microsoft Outlook add-ons, Microsoft Outlook plug-ins, Microsoft Outlook extensions, etc)

Outlook Add-ins are small helping programs for the Microsoft Outlook application. The main purpose of the add-ins is to add new functional capabilities into Microsoft Outlook and automate some routine operations. Also refers to programs where the main function is to work on Outlook files such as synchronisation or backup utilities.

Outlook Express

Outlook Express is a similar, but distinct, e-mail, newsgroup, and contact management application that Microsoft made available at no charge, in conjunction with older versions of its Internet Explorer web browser. Other than the similar name there is no connection between the two products and they originate from different divisions of Microsoft. While both offer access to POP3 and IMAP4 e-mail accounts, only Outlook offers client access (MAPI) to Microsoft Exchange. Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) does not include an e-mail client, however, and Windows Vista (which includes IE7) replaces Outlook Express with Windows Mail. For Windows XP, Outlook Express has been succeeded by Windows Live Mail.

See also

• Comparison of e-mail clients
• List of personal information managers
• Outlook Web Access
• Windows Calendar
• Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format
• Comparison of office suites

References

External links

• Official Microsoft Outlook site
• Outlook Developer Portal
• Microsoft Office Outlook Team Blog