I have a rule that applies to a lot of contacts and even more are added over time and sometimes I have to remove contacts as well. I’ve added all these addresses to a single rule but it is hard to manage the rule this way and I often get the message that I’ve run out of space and that the rule has been deactivated.

I then tried to use a Distribution List to group all the contacts together and use that distribution list for the rule instead. This won’t work either since Outlook extracts the distribution list into individual addresses when creating the rule so I’d be back where I started from. Assigning categories to contacts and base the rule on that (kinda like; if sender is in a specific category) seems not to be a possibility either.

Is there another way I can manage this?

I’ve got several eml-files which I saved over the years with Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail. I’ve now switched to using Outlook. When I double click these messages, they still open with Windows Live Mail.

Can I open these messages with Outlook instead?

For some of your tips I need to start Outlook as an Administrator.

Within Vista this was easy by right clicking the Outlook icon on the Taskbar and choosing “Run as Administrator”. In Windows 7 this right click menu is gone because of the new Taskbar.

How can I easily launch Outlook as an Administrator on Windows 7?

I used your previous tip to get rid of the Save/Open prompt when double clicking an attachment. Now I want to undo that for several file types.

How can I undo that?

On occasion, it could happen that message tracking is not working correctly and responses are not automatically recorded in Outlook. You could still process and track those responses manually then to still have an up-to-date reference on who is coming and who is not.

This method also works for when you got an answer to a meeting invitation via telephone, at the water cooler or via any other means besides Outlook.

I’ve just switched to Windows 7 and found that it no longer ships with a mail client as Outlook Express in Windows XP or Windows Mail in Windows Vista. My version of Office contains Outlook and I now want to use that.

How do I get all my original emails in Outlook?

Yesterday’s post got several responses with questions about a “You’ve got mail” voice. Some people would like to know how to turn it on and others would like to know how to turn it off.

When I receive a message which is marked with high priority, Outlook plays 3 loud beeps. As I often wear a headset, it really hurts my ears.

How can I disable this annoying sound?

I need to send someone some contact details but those contact details need to be in the message text and not send as an attachment (I don’t know if the receiver can open vcf- or msg-files).

How can I quickly insert these details?

I received a meeting invitation from someone but I cannot accept the meeting invitation as I can’t use the Accept, Decline and Tentative buttons.
I believe the sender used iCal on a Mac to send me this meeting request.

Is there any way I can still accept this so it will go into my Outlook Calendar?