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A few weeks back there was an article in TechNet that addressed this. The article number was 910619. I say was because i think it has been removed. It had a link to an msi file that would update the Outlook.hol file. I ran it on my machine and it did work. Attached is my updated Outlook.hol file. Simply search for the Outlook.hol file on your machine, back it up, replace it with this updated file then re-add the holidays in Outlook. Note: you will need to unzip the attached file first before replacing your current holiday file.

Thanks. That’s very encouraging to know. We consulted with Microsoft about this and they advised against having different versions. Of course we wondered if that was just a company line or if that was a valid assessment. This is why I’m trying to get feedback.

Do you mean that even if we have separate install points for Office XP and Outlook 2003 we may still run into problems when we apply patches or is it only a problem if we have one install point for both? Just want to make sure I understood you.

It all depends on the version of Outlook you are using. For older versions of Outlook you can use the newprof or profgen in a script file. In newer versions of Outlook you can use a transform file to do what newprof and profgen does. For more information, check out the Office resource kit.

To be more specific. If I update Outlook 2003 and it updated a shared file then later on updated Office XP and it updates the same shared file, is it smart enough not to overwrite an older version? In the same token, if the shared file was updated by an Outlook 2003 update, will it cause problems when Office XP uses the same shared file? Backward compatibility I can see as not having problems but forward compatibility (if there is such a thing)? I’m suspecting Office XP will have a problem using a shared file that was updated by an Outlook 2003 update. Any thoughts?

I understand about the updates being version specific. That’s why we intend to use separate install points for Office XP and Outlook 2003. I’m looking for some feedback from people who have experience with using separate install points. Will applying version specific update have adverse affects on the shared files?

Thanks for the responses regarding functionalities lost. Are there people out there who can offer any insight with regards to the questions I had regarding administration? I have concerns about having separate install points for Office XP and Outlook 2003 in terms of applying patches, service packs, updates and hot fixes. Since the Office suite includes Outlook and they share quite a bit of common files, I wonder how it would affect either or both when something is applied to one or another or both. Has anyone have any experience with this scenario?

Do you use an admin install point or just install straight from a CD? If you use admin install points, did you create a separate install point for Outlook 2003? If so, how do you handle updates, patches, fixes and/or service packs? By the way are there specific functionalities you lost?

Another option would be to do a registry hack. If you don’t have one yet, under HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftOffice10.0OutlookSecurity, create a new string value entry with a value name Level1Remove. The value data would be the extension/s you want Outlook to “unblock” separated by a semi-colon with no spaces in between.

Another option would be to do a registry hack. If you don’t have one yet, under HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftOffice10.0OutlookSecurity, create a new string value entry with a value name Level1Remove. The value data would be the extension/s you want Outlook to “unblock” separated by a semi-colon with no spaces in between.

Might you have some kind of rule that would send stuff to the junk folder?

Might you have some kind of rule that would send stuff to the junk folder?

I apologize for the post. Not thinking clearly today.

I apologize for the post. Not thinking clearly today.

Here’s a couple of MS articles that might shed some light to what you are seeing. Q834466 and Q32396.