BUG: Outlook treats new message window as a dialog box

[ivanbuto]

BUG: Outlook treats new message window as a dialog box

Applies to:

Outlook 2000/2002/2003 (possibly also earlier versions, but not tested)

Tested with:

OL 2000 on Windows 98 SE

OL 2003 on Windows XP Pro SP2

SYMPTOMS

When Outlook is called externally to create a new message, it will treat the new message window as a dialog box. This has the consequence that the whole application is locked until one disposes of the "dialog box" either by sending the message or closing it.

An alternative scenario is such that Outlook is not running, and the call is made to create a new message. In such case, if one attempts to start Outlook, one gets the following error message:

"Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. A dialog box is open. Close it and try again."

EXAMPLE

The symptoms can be experienced for example when one is browsing a webpage with Internet Explorer, and uses the File -> Send -> Link by E-mail... function. Another example is using a "Compress and e-mail" function with the Windows Explorer file menu in case such an explorer shell extension is installed by the given compression software.

Note: If one decides to save the new message in those cases and subsequently close it, the message is saved in the Inbox folder, NOT the Drafts folder (which is the normal behavior).

DISCUSSION

It would be helpful to find out exactly what external call to Microsoft Outlook causes this problem. For example, using the File -> Send Link... function with Firefox does NOT cause this problem with Outlook.

One could argue that this is not a bug, but it would be a tough argument to make, seeing as other e-mail programs do not lock up in this way (including Outlook Express and Mozilla Thunderbird).

I would like to submit this bug to Microsoft, but before doing so, I'm posting it on these forums to gather any relevant insights that people might have. Anything that would help describe the problem more accurately would be great. I got zero replies in the MS Outlook newsgroups (microsoft.public.outlook and microsoft.public.outlook.general).

Ivan

P.S. You have to wonder why Microsoft would not fix this bug after several versions of its flagship e-mail client. This seems to be a similar case as the lack of an option to select which pages to print in a plain text e-mail - in Outlook 2003, one still can't do this. Flexibility and responsiveness seem not to be values that Microsoft adheres to.

[TheFlash428]

Yes, I have noticed this problem as well.

Another issue that I have (which was recently brought up on this board actually), is that when calling Outlook to send file externally (send to... function), it uses outlook as the editor and not MS Word, as I have my options set to do when using OL. The outlook editor has less functionallity and it won't add signatures.