The undeletable Outlook folder, episode 2

re: The undeletable Outlook folder, episode 2

Mark Steward — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 18:21:18 GMT

I know little about Outlook, but I've seen extensions causing all sorts of folder issues - have you tried safe mode (outlook /safe)?

re: The undeletable Outlook folder, episode 2

Brian Hoyt — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 20:49:20 GMT

This is one of the reasons I keep a VPC image around with the final version of Exchange 5.0 client from Outlook 97 SR-2. It has no problems deleting anything. Also it lets you move multiple folders around in an explorer like folder list view. For some reason these features were removed within Outlook.

re: The undeletable Outlook folder, episode 2

Scott — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 23:00:25 GMT

whenever I've had a folder Outlook won't let me delete, I've been able to do so with Outlook Web Access. Could try that.

re: The undeletable Outlook folder, episode 2

David Brooks — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:54:26 GMT

I have an unrenameable Outlook folder. Once upon a time, many years ago, Exchange dogfood had a little amnesia, and decided my Drafts folder was a regular mail folder, noticed I didn't have a folder for drafts, so created a new folder which of course had to be called Drafts1. This setup has survived server moves and upgrades. I left the regular folder in place hoping, oh, I don't know, maybe one day some fairy godmother would come along and restore the canonical state of affairs.

But even if I move the regular folder "Drafts" to trash (which I can), it won't let me rename Drafts1 because, you know, you can't delete or rename a special folder. Even if it doesn't have the right name.

It's just a little oddity that I have no problem living with.

re: The undeletable Outlook folder, episode 2

Derek Leung — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 01:32:55 GMT

David: If it even annoys you a little, you can run: "outlook.exe /resetfoldernames" which will (unsurprisingly enough), reset all the special folder names to the originals.

re: The undeletable Outlook folder, episode 2

Igor — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 03:17:02 GMT

Derek said:

"If it even annoys you a little, you can run: "outlook.exe /resetfoldernames""

Funny, like if there was ever a way to rename them in the first place?!?

re: The undeletable Outlook folder, episode 2

Norman Diamond — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 04:42:55 GMT

There is a way to rename Outlook's special folders. When installing the English language pack on a client, it even changes the folder names for that user on servers that it can access. (I don't know what happens if a server isn't accessible at the time the language pack is installed.)

A bit off topic but I had to share

boxmonkey — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 04:55:12 GMT

We just recently had a hell of a time setting up a front-end Exchange server for OWA. We don't have an SSL certificate yet (don't ask, the beaurocracy here is ridiculous), so we had forms based authentication disabled. It would not let us login even from the front-end server, though we could log in to the backend server fine. After a couple weeks of messing with it, someone had the bright idea of turning on forms based authentication even though it's only for use with SSL, and viola, it works like a charm.

Now we can wait a year to get approval for the SSL certificate through the chain of command, and see if that breaks anything new. :P

re: The undeletable Outlook folder, episode 2

Sven Groot — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:37:35 GMT

Igor, the outlook.exe /resetfoldernames option is specifically to fix localisation issues.

For instance if I use a Dutch version of Outlook and I connect to my Exchange mailbox for the first time, it will create Dutch folder names as it should. But if someone sends me an e-mail before I have ever connected, the folders will be created using the language of Exchange, usually English.

In this case /resetfoldernames would allow me to recreate them in Dutch.

re: The undeletable Outlook folder, episode 2

Dewi Morgan — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 01:52:47 GMT

I have to say, the "eat your own dogfood" ethos in MS is one of the things that really impresses me.

re: The undeletable Outlook folder, episode 2

DrPizza — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:12:06 GMT

OWA is much better at deleting errant folders than Outlook.