NicolBlog : outlook

NicolTIP#007: What to do when you no longer can run macros in Outlook 2007

NicolD — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:49:26 GMT

I am quoting information from [http://blog.tjitjing.com/index.php/2007/03/things-i-can-and-cannot-get-to-work-in.html] because I tumbled in this issue and forgot to "just" restart Outlook :^)

Whenever I went in to Tools - Macro - Macros, selected my macro and hit run I would end up in the Visual Basic editor with an error message saying “The macros in this project are disabled. Please refer to the online help or documentation of the host application to determine how to enable macros.”
I went in to Tools - Macro - Macro Security and first changed from the default “Warnings for signed macros; all unsigned macros are disabled” to “Warnings for all macros” and finally to “No security check for macros” but I still could not get the macros to run.
In spite of a lot of Googling I found nothing. Then I realized I hadn’t tried trick no 1 in the book: Restart Outlook. And of course that was the solution.
(Note to Microsoft: Please add a “Outlook needs to be restarted” message. Note to myself: Don’t be so stupid next time around)

A good thing in Outlook 2007 is that I no longer get the “A program is trying to access e-mail addresses you have stored in Outlook. Do you want to allow this? … Allow for x minutes”. I assume they have gotten rid of this annoying message and replaced with some security feature that does not require user intervention.

HowTo: Unblock restricted file attachments in Microsoft Outlook 2007

NicolD — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:54:20 GMT

If you want (REALLY WANT :-) to change the Outlook file attachments security levels (i.e. to read e .exe file attached to a received email), and you know how to use the regedit.exe tool, you can follow the procedure below:

Start...Run..."regedit"
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Security
Create a new string value called Level1Remove
Enter in the file extensions you want to use, such as .exe or .bat
You can have multiple file types separated by a semicolon like this: ".exe;.com"
Close and open outlook.

To avoid risks, I suggest to keep the string "Level1Remove" in the registry ONLY for the strict necessary.

More info on .NET Atlanta Regular Guys blog.

How to remove attachments from outlook emails easily

NicolD — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 17:22:00 GMT

I receive often emails with big attachment that fill my inbox space very quickly.
On the other side, I usually like both to remove these attach and keep the email to preserve the thread for future use. Outlook 2003 don't have this feature so I wrote the following VBA function I added to a button on my client that resolve easily this task.

TIP: You can select more message at once too. This is useful if you want to clear a big number of messages you already have archivied.

Hope this helps!

' by Nicola Delfino 30-03-2005
' based on code found at on http://www.outlookcode.com

' Setup and instructions
' (1) Digitally sign VBA project
'          start->office->Microsoft office tools->digital certificates for VBA
'          create a certificate
' (2) sign the code
'          from VBA
'          tools->digital signature-> (choose certificate)
' (3) add icon on toolbar
'          from outlook
'          tools->customize
'                add icon on toolbar
'                [rearrange commands] to change icon and name on toolbar
' (4) install [http://www.contextmagic.com/express-clickyes/]
' (5) be sure that tools->macros->security
'               on "thrusted publishers" "trust all installed add-ins and templates" is checked

Public Sub StripAttachments()
    Dim objOL As Outlook.Application
    Dim objMsg As Object
    Dim objAttachments As Outlook.Attachments
    Dim objSelection As Outlook.Selection
    Dim i As Long
    Dim lngCount As Long
    Dim strFile As String
    Dim strFolder As String

    Dim result

    On Error Resume Next

    result = MsgBox("do you want to remove attachments from selected file?", vbYesNo + vbQuestion)
    If result = vbNo Then
        Exit Sub
    End If

    ' Instantiate an Outlook Application object.
    Set objOL = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
    ' Get the collection of selected objects.
    Set objSelection = objOL.ActiveExplorer.Selection

    ' Check each selected item for attachments.
    ' If attachments exist, save them to the Temp
    ' folder and strip them from the item.
    For Each objMsg In objSelection
        ' This code only strips attachments from mail items.
        If objMsg.Class = olMail Then
            ' Get the Attachments collection of the item.
            Set objAttachments = objMsg.Attachments
            lngCount = objAttachments.Count
            If lngCount > 0 Then
                ' We need to use a count down loop for
                ' removing items from a collection. Otherwise,
                ' the loop counter gets confused and only every
                ' other item is removed.
                strFile = ""
                For i = lngCount To 1 Step -1
                    ' Save attachment before deleting from item.
                    ' Get the file name.

                    strFile = strFile & objAttachments.Item(i).FileName & "-" & vbCrLf

                    ' Save the attachment as a file.
                    objAttachments.Item(i).SaveAsFile strFile
                    ' Delete the attachment.
                    objAttachments.Item(i).Delete
                Next i
                strFile = strFile & "ATTACH REMOVED" & "-" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf

                Dim objDoc As Object
                Dim objInsp As Outlook.Inspector
                Set objInsp = objMsg.GetInspector
                Set objDoc = objInsp.WordEditor


                objDoc.Characters(1).InsertBefore strFile
                objDoc.Save
                objMsg.HTMLBody = strFile + objMsg.HTMLBody


            End If
            objMsg.Save
        End If
    Next

ExitSub:
    Set objAttachments = Nothing
    Set objMsg = Nothing
    Set objSelection = Nothing
    Set objOL = Nothing
End Sub