Microsoft Outlook 2003 [OLD VERSION] :: Education by Design Store

Customer Reviews

email

2005-08-06
Also it keeps requesting a security password in my email. This is obsurd. Especially if it's my own home computer.

Micorsoft Outlook 2003

2005-08-02
I have been a user of Micorsoft products for over 20 years. Outlook is a great program. The ability to add pictures to your contacts and the reading of your mail on the side is super. There was no problem in loading or importing the data from a backup file I made before I completely restaged my wifes laptop.

Outlook is good but it is not for everybody!

2005-02-13
Outlook is a very powerful program that can do a lot of stuff but most users do not use more than 10% of Outlooks functionality. If you are one of these users I suggest not getting Outlook but look at some alternatives. For instance try Mozilla's Thunderbird email program. It is a very good email program with a lot of functionality and great spam protection. The best part about an alternative email program like Thunderbird is that it's free! Since Thunderbird is open source software anyone who wants to help work on it can. Thunderbird is worked on by millions of programmers around the world who want to use a better email program. It's user friendly and easy to install. Find it by doing a Web search for Mozilla Thunderbird.

Still Looking For A Better Mouse Trap!

2004-10-19
I have always given Outlook a second chance every time Microsoft comes out with a new version and some reason or another I end up switching back to something else.

I really like the concepts of having an "all-in-one" package for email, contacts, appointments, etc; But Microsoft needs to start paying more attention to detail on email functionality.

After using Outlook 2003 for about a year now, here are some annoyances that are driving me away from this product.

1.) Cannot add my own email filters and filter rules. This feature should be a given and my biggest complaint. Why do I need to rely on Microsoft to update Junk Email filters for me? Other email clients (Such as Netscape) allow me to add a filter for certain key words and an action such as "send to trash" if it encounters those key words.

2.) Junk Email features are a joke. Again, anchored on my 1st complaint, if junk email arrives in my inbox, I have to add the sender to the block senders list. This is fine if the sender always uses the same return address, but as you know with spammers, this is never the case. Also, Outlook waits to inform me that the email is junk AFTER I've opened the email.

3.) Too much security, and no control. Is there such thing as too much security? I believe there is if I can't control what I want enabled and disabled without a bunch of registry hacks.
Instead of Microsoft making the decision for me of what I can view or cannot view as an attachment, I would prefer to make that decision for myself.

4.) Favorite Email Folders is a stupid and useless feature and you can't get rid it. This window is just useless clutter, but yet again, we have no control of what's displayed in the outlook window. Enough said.

5.) Forwarded messages arrive as attachments, no way to change this. Another big complaint of mine. If a message was forwarded 3,4 or more times, I have keep drilling down through the attachments for each time the message was forwarded just to get to the original message. Ultimately you end up with x number of useless windows open cluttering up your taskbar and x number of windows I have to close once I'm done reading the original message. If a message was forwarded 4 times before it got to me, that's 4 times I have to double click an attachment and 4 extra windows open. It would be nice to have the option to have all forwarded messages contained within the same message body instead as an attachment.

Not for people on dial-up

2004-09-12
I think that this version of Outlook would be perfect if I weren't on dial-up: Outlook seems to be incapable of doing anything relating to your HTTP or IMAP email folders without checking the server, to the point that you can't even access them offline. The fact that Outlook has to check the server almost evrey time you do anything to your email can really be grating on dial-up. Maybe there's a way to stop the constant reference to the server, but I haven't found it.

It also has an annoying habit of locally replacing one of my two Hotmail accounts with the other, necessitating that I remove and recreate the "corrupt" account.

Seeing as how I don't use many of Outlook's other bells and whistles, I can't comment on the broader program, but apart from that signficant headache, it works fairly well.

Good

2007-09-23
Good product -- unfortunately I've seen upgraded to Outlook 2007 on Vista -- unacceptably, painfully slow performance and software lockouts that require program restarts many times during a session -- even after microsoft's patches....

Microsoft Outlook 2003 [Old Version]

2007-05-13
Pros: overall good Email program. Establishing folders very good

Cons: Address book and Contact list can not be merged and vis versa. Backup of Address Book location not clear. Export and import of files not clear. Moving data base files to a new computer very difficult.

BEWARE: Outlook 2003 does not work with Office 2002 programs

2007-01-29
Outlook 2003 does not work with MS Word 2002 as the e-mail editor. Reverse is also true. Ditto on all other 2002 programs andindividual program 2003 upgrades.
- Copy and paste is even limited in formatting = a copied formatted text from Word to Outlook 2003 cannot be re-formatted.
- Table option is not available at all.
- Neither is picture formatting.
- Forget mail merge!
It's a waste of time if you need programs to interact.
This is a deception on the part of Microsoft as they do not make this clear at all when your purchase individual program upgrades.

Upgraded and happy

2005-10-17
Outlook 2003 was a huge difference from my previous version. It is very user friendly if you just install and get going. I purchased an Outlook book to help me get going, and it was great.

Pros- faster from contact to email to notes. friendlier to my pop3 email. you can get more done faster when it comes to organizing. Lots of good plugins online.

Cons-not backwards compatible with the rest of the office suite. If all you want is outlook to stand alone, it is great as a single upgrade. If you want to use it with word and the rest, upgrade the whole office package.

Hope this helped.

Marty

Great Management Tool

2005-08-26
We're a small business that decided to buy this product after tyring it out (see the Microsoft website for a free download trial). It has streamlined our e-mail and contact management.

Pros:

The boss and I each have our own Palm devices and we can each sync separately at our respective computers, only affecting our respective calendars and contact lists. I also especially like being able to view all 6 of the schedules I keep track of side by side.

Cons:

We have to export and then import my boss' calendar in order for us to keep track of changes we each make to it. This is something we can do across our network, but one of needs to shut down Outlook while the other imports the file. However, this is a very minor inconvenience greatly outweighed by the pros of this software.

Highly recommended!