Executive Summary:
AutoComplete tips for Microsoft Outlook can help you use AutoComplete more efficiently. Make forms-based authentication work by following Dan Holme's tips. Remove Microsoft Office Excel 2007 duplicates in one step. Learn SharePoint backup and restore options to better help your users store documents.
|
Q: I reinstalled Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and I no longer see names “autofilling” when
I type them in the To field of an email message. What’s up?
A: The feature you’re asking about is called AutoComplete. It proposes names as you type
in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields of email messages, meeting requests, assigned tasks, and share
requests, as well as in the email field of contacts.
A common misconception about this feature is that it “pulls” names from your contacts.
It should pull names—but it doesn’t. Microsoft, are you listening? Hello—Office 14 feature
request!
What it does do is suggest names based on email addresses you have typed before, whether
those names are in your address book or not. If you reinstall Outlook, you lose that history
(although upgrading preserves it). Here are a couple pointers about using AutoComplete:
- If a name appears in the AutoComplete list that you don’t want to appear, scroll down to
it and press Delete. This helps to prevent you from accidentally sending an email message
to someone you emailed once before.
- The AutoComplete list is stored in a file named Outlook_profile_name.nk2. So, for
example, if my Outlook profile name is Dan, my AutoComplete list is dan.nk2. You can
find the list stored in the Outlook folder in the local settings folder of your user profile,
which is %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook on Windows Vista and
%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook on Windows XP. You
simply copy and paste this file to transfer it between systems. You can rename the file if
the profile name has changed (e.g., rename Dan.nk2 as DanHolme.nk2). Logically, this
file ought to be in the roaming portion of your user profile, though it’s not.
Q: I have a SharePoint site with forms-based authentication. When I try to do <fill in the
blank> using an Office application, it doesn’t connect correctly. How can I make it work?
A: I’m asked variations of this question frequently, hence . It could be that
you’re trying to open a library in Windows Explorer, connect to a SharePoint site with Microsoft
Office SharePoint Designer 2007, export to Microsoft Excel, connect to a list with Microsoft
Access, or complete another task. Whatever it is you’re trying to do, when you use forms-based
authentication, you must select the Sign me in automatically checkbox, and Microsoft Internet
Explorer (IE) must remain open. Your Office application (i.e., SharePoint, Access, Excel) will
ride on the authentication you’ve created.
Technically, what happens is that your forms-based authentication creates a persistent
cookie, which client applications can use. If you don’t select Sign me in automatically, or if persistent cookies aren’t allowed in your
environment, client integration will fail.
Here are two other important tips regarding
forms-based authentication:
- The persistent cookie expires. So
“sign me in automatically” is a bit of a
misnomer—by default, it signs you in
for 30 minutes. To change the timeout
value, you must change or add a timeout
attribute with a timeout value expressed
in minutes. You add this to the forms
element in the Web.config file for the
application. For example, to change the
timeout to two hours, type
name=”.ASPXFORMSAUTH”
timeout=”120” />
where “120” is the timeout value of two
hours, expressed in minutes. (The previous
entry wraps to several lines because of space
constraints here; you should type it on one
line in the file.)
- You must have client integration enabled
for the SharePoint application. In Share-
Point Central Administration, open the
settings for the application’s authentication
provider and select Yes in the Enable
client integration section.
Q: How can I remove duplicates from an
Excel database?
A: Luckily, Microsoft Office Excel 2007 made
it significantly easier to remove duplicates
from a database. Simply select any cell in
your data table and click the Remove Duplicates
button on the Data tab of the Ribbon.
You’ll be prompted to choose the columns
to analyze for duplicates. If two or more rows
contain the exact same data in the selected
column or columns, the duplicate rows will
be deleted, leaving only one row with that
data. Easy, huh?
Keep in mind that Excel can open many
common data file formats, such as .csv and
.txt files, for delimited data. So
if you have duplicate data in
another application that doesn’t
support duplicate purging, you
can export to Excel, remove
duplicates in Excel, then export
back to the original database.
Continue to page 2
Previous
Register
