Microsoft Office (Entourage): Major Problems After Latest Update

bluegecko

Registered
Dual 2 GHz G5
OS 10.4.2
Microsoft Office 2004
Entourage 2004 v11.2.0

I routinely allow Microsoft Office to check for updates and go ahead an install these, because they are almost always small bug fixes (that I had often not even encountered). Well, the last update that came down has managed to completely screw up my Entourage (I don't really use the other office product very much, whereas I use Entourage non-stop).

First of all, I encountered several problems while the update was trying to update my data file. It kept failing and wanting to start over. I finally had to rebuild the database, and then the update went through.

The major change in this update is better compatibility with Exchange servers, and on that front, I actually see a huge improvement, because it seems like Entourage for Mac is finally a better Exchange client and we are now able to see all public folders, and calendars, address books, etc. However at least a few things have been broken since the update, and I am trying to see if it is just me, or if anyone else can verify these:

1. This is not so much a bug as it is a mini heart attack in waiting! During the update, apparently all of your contacts and calendar events get moved to the exchange server (obviously this only happens if you are connected to an exchange server). So instead of these records being in your local contact and calendar database, they are now accessed through the exchange server versions that are created for you. That's not such a big deal except that there was no warning about this. So when I launched Entourage after the update, it seemed like I had lost all my data in those areas. But they are all there. Just moved to a different location. Although this still seems confusing, because now we have 2 locations for calendar events and contacts.

2. Drag and drop is broken! I used to be able to drag a task or a an email onto the calendar and create events out of them. This was a great tool, as that is how I set up my appointments, etc. This no longer works. Although the calendar gets highlighted and it looks like you should be able to do this, when you let go of the task you dragged on top of the calendar, nothing happens. There are scripts to let you do this, but dragging and dropping was far easier and quicker.

3. Window preferences do not seem to stick. I have 3 windows open when I am working with Entourage: 1 Main window for email on the left the full height of the screen and then I have 2 smaller half height windows stacked on tope of each other on the right, with one displaying tasks and the last displaying my workweek calendar. Every time I quit out of Entourage and come back in, the views and location of the 3 windows on the change. I have thrown away all my preferences, etc., and it does not seem to help. I remember back a few years ago, it seemed like if you had Internet Explorer open, then the preferences file was not getting written to, so in order to make changes stick, you had to quit out of IE first and make the changes and then quit the program to make sure the preferences were modifies and then you were good. This seem similar to that expect that I don’t use IE anymore.

Anyone has any comments on these issues? Thank you.
 
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