Making Outlook not work with GroupWise
Category:Sabotage
Date:
On 05-21-98, I called our Microsoft Premiere Support number to request help with the conflict between GW and Outlook 98. I spoke to Barbara Thomas who generated case SRX9805216011611.
My initial request was that MS consider it a bug that Outlook 98 by default installs using the "Internet Only" option for e-mail services. I told her that it was our opinion that the Outlook 98’s setup program should inspect the system it’s being installed on and choose the "Corporate or Workgroup E-mail" option by default if the Windows Messaging System (WMS i.e., MAPI) was installed and profiles have been defined and choose the "lnternet Only" option by default otherwise. This would probably eliminate 90% of the complaints we get as I’m sure most people when reading the screen containing these options don’t realize what’s being said and simply go with the default as being "safe".
On 05-28-98 I received a call and e-mail from Barbara telling me that my request had been investigated and Adam (I don’t recall having heard his last name) from Microsoft would be contacting me. On either the 28th or 29th, I got a call from Adam. He told me that MS views the way Outlook 98 was operating as a "Feature", not a bug. They would take my request and submit it as an "Enhancement" for future development. I discussed/argued the issue with Adam for several minutes, explaining how by defaulting to "lnternet Only", Outlook 98 ends up breaking a GroupWise installation that had up to the point Outlook 98 was installed, worked fine. I explained to him that the setup screen made no mention of MAPI services being changed and/or broken for applications that need them. His response was that the user is given an ample description of what was going to happen and that we should "educate" our users to make the correct selection during Outlook 98’s setup. All in all, I’d describe my conversation with Adam as equivalent to talking to a rock.
I believe that the changes I made to the address book’s initialization flow last week is probably the best that we can hope for without Outlook 98 changing. We may want to add something to our README about this. The check/change I put into Surge for Outlook 98 could easily be retrofitted into a Jolt CPR build as well, assuming we don’t mind the resource the changes.
FYI: Before I made the changes mentioned above, when installing Outlook 98 using the "lnternet Only" default option, the following problems were encountered:
- No Novell address book service providers are available;
- There is no way to add them to your profile (the old MAPI profile dialog has been replaced by something Outlook 98 specific).
- Sometimes (usually?), our call tologin to MAPl fails (I don’t fully understand why this
happens).
- When we can login. Outlook 98’s LDAP service provider causes us grief because of its problems implementing the MAPI APIs we use. The problems here include:
Calls to IMAPlTable::Restrict GPF when passed NULL for the restriction. This is the only documented way in MAPI to delete a restriction.
The way we use MAPI for LDAP services for Boldon James and Nexor doesn’t work with the Outlook 98 provider. I’ve found two areas that we could/should change that should be compatible with the Boldon James and/or Nexor providers.
Dennis.
Synopsis
Snippet
From: Denns Foster To: Dave Wilkes; John Galley; John Robertson Date: Tue, Jun 9, 1998 3:46 PM Subject: GroupWise vs. Outlook 98On 05-21-98, I called our Microsoft Premiere Support number to request help with the conflict between GW and Outlook 98. I spoke to Barbara Thomas who generated case SRX9805216011611.
My initial request was that MS consider it a bug that Outlook 98 by default installs using the "Internet Only" option for e-mail services. I told her that it was our opinion that the Outlook 98’s setup program should inspect the system it’s being installed on and choose the "Corporate or Workgroup E-mail" option by default if the Windows Messaging System (WMS i.e., MAPI) was installed and profiles have been defined and choose the "lnternet Only" option by default otherwise. This would probably eliminate 90% of the complaints we get as I’m sure most people when reading the screen containing these options don’t realize what’s being said and simply go with the default as being "safe".
On 05-28-98 I received a call and e-mail from Barbara telling me that my request had been investigated and Adam (I don’t recall having heard his last name) from Microsoft would be contacting me. On either the 28th or 29th, I got a call from Adam. He told me that MS views the way Outlook 98 was operating as a "Feature", not a bug. They would take my request and submit it as an "Enhancement" for future development. I discussed/argued the issue with Adam for several minutes, explaining how by defaulting to "lnternet Only", Outlook 98 ends up breaking a GroupWise installation that had up to the point Outlook 98 was installed, worked fine. I explained to him that the setup screen made no mention of MAPI services being changed and/or broken for applications that need them. His response was that the user is given an ample description of what was going to happen and that we should "educate" our users to make the correct selection during Outlook 98’s setup. All in all, I’d describe my conversation with Adam as equivalent to talking to a rock.
I believe that the changes I made to the address book’s initialization flow last week is probably the best that we can hope for without Outlook 98 changing. We may want to add something to our README about this. The check/change I put into Surge for Outlook 98 could easily be retrofitted into a Jolt CPR build as well, assuming we don’t mind the resource the changes.
FYI: Before I made the changes mentioned above, when installing Outlook 98 using the "lnternet Only" default option, the following problems were encountered:
- No Novell address book service providers are available;
- There is no way to add them to your profile (the old MAPI profile dialog has been replaced by something Outlook 98 specific).
- Sometimes (usually?), our call tologin to MAPl fails (I don’t fully understand why this
happens).
- When we can login. Outlook 98’s LDAP service provider causes us grief because of its problems implementing the MAPI APIs we use. The problems here include:
Calls to IMAPlTable::Restrict GPF when passed NULL for the restriction. This is the only documented way in MAPI to delete a restriction.
The way we use MAPI for LDAP services for Boldon James and Nexor doesn’t work with the Outlook 98 provider. I’ve found two areas that we could/should change that should be compatible with the Boldon James and/or Nexor providers.
Dennis.