Boswell's Q&A

Solving It with the KnowledgeBase

This column is a lot more fun when readers solve their own problems. Plus, a CAL follow-up.

• By Bill Boswell
• 09/23/2003

This newsletter is a lot more fun when readers solve their own problems. Here’s an example:

Bill: I have a problem with the calendar in Outlook 2000. I click on a day to set an appointment (can be a day within the same month or a different month), and the yellow pad with the time to schedule the appointment appears as normal with the date I selected on the calendar at the top of the yellow pad. However, when I double click one of the time slots to schedule the appointment, the start and end dates that are listed for the appointment are the current day of the month. Hope this makes sense. Any ideas?
—Brian

Get Help from Bill Got a Windows or Exchange question or need troubleshooting help? Or maybe you want a better explanation than provided in the manuals? Describe your dilemma in an e-mail to Bill at mailto:[email protected]; the best questions get answered in this column. When you send your questions, please include your full first and last name, location, certifications (if any) with your message. (If you prefer to remain anonymous, specify this in your message but submit the requested information for verification purposes.)

Here was my reply:

Totally strange. Never heard or seen of this. If you click Day to put the view to the day's appointments, then select another day in another month on the calendar, does the date at the top of the view change to the selected date? If so, when you double-click in the new date, what dates are assigned to the appointment?

Brian replies:

If you click on a different day of the week, or in another month, the date at the top of the view changes, but if you double click on a time slot for an appointment, the start and end dates stay with the current day’s date.

Then Brian found a solution to the problem:

I found Microsoft KB article 197180 "OL2000: Additional Command-Line Switches") and followed the instructions to run the /cleanviews switch. It worked! The problem is fixed.

Okay, since the Outlook command line switches are a little-known item, I thought it would be worth giving them a little publicity. In addition to cleaning up the Calendar, you can clean and regenerate Free/Busy and Reminders, start Outlook in an existing window, renew the prompt for default e-mail and news handlers, turn off the pesky Preview pane, and launch Outlook in Safe mode to skip previews and toolbar customizations. Very cool.

In a follow-up to last week’s Q&A on Exchange CALs, a reader asked if it is really necessary to purchase CALs for Exchange if you buy Outlook as part of the Office Professional Suite, or to buy a server CAL if you buy Windows 2000 Pro or XP Pro with a computer. This is a common assumption, usually based on the price of the software. “This has to include the access licenses. It just has to.” But it doesn’t. Regardless of what you pay for the Office suite or the desktop operating system, you still need to by a CAL and have the purchase on file in case you get audited.

Hope this helps.