Reminders and Outlook 2002 (2002 SP2)

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Since upgrading from Outlook 2000 to 2002 SP2 (on Win2K SP3), we’re seeing different behavior from the reminder dialog (along with it all being lumped into one, which is a good thing). The dialog sometimes, but not always, appears on top of the current window. This is a problem, because some of my users (mostly the VIPs) keep a lot of windows open and have a lot going on in their offices so don’t necessarily hear the little bing that accompanies the reminder popup or notice one more window in their task bar.

The pattern seems to be, if you’ve got the main Outlook window open plus any number of other programs, the reminder comes on top. But, if you have a second Outlook window open (like a message being read or composed, or a separate window for your calendar), the reminder is directly on top of that 2nd window – and if you’ve got something else open in front of that 2nd window, it’s also in front of the reminder.

Is this really on purpose? Any fix for it, short of recommending a really loud and long sound to accompany the reminder box?

-Anne

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Hi Anne… apparently, Microsoft designed the Reminder to be inactive to default… I’ve attached the Knowledge Base Article relating to this issue http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…kb;en-us;289970%5B/url%5D. Hope this helps… trish

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That’s interesting. For the original poster’s benefit (or amusement) I trained myself to watch the Status bar in Windows 2000. Do Reminders also appear on the Status Bar in Windows 98?

If not, we could knock out a bit of code that would provide a very annoying Message Box that the user would have to OK out of, and I think that will come on top of any window. Here’s a rough start, has to be placed under the ThisOutlookSession object:

Private Sub Application_Reminder(ByVal Item As Object)
MsgBox “Reminder: ” & Item.Subject & vbLf & “Start Time: ” & Item.Start & vbLf & _
IIf(TypeName(Item) = “AppointmentItem”, “Location: ” & Item.Location, vbNullString)
End Sub

It fires before the standard reminder, which also fires.

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Trish, “not active” is not a problem – it’s the “not visible” that’s the issue. Like John, I personally notice when another window appears at the bottom of the screen. However, the VIP in question is not the detail oriented sort and it’s probably much too late to train her May have to try the annoying message box idea (though I am still somewhat fond of the idea of changing the friendly little reminder bing into some sort of obnoxious noise).

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… an obnoxious noise like a recording of you saying “You have an appointment! Please check your calendar!”

My wife has a 10 second recording of an Australian Kurrawong which fires -every- time she gets an e-mail. The dog goes nuts!

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