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I was always amazed when attorneys first got Outlook 2007, they quickly uncovered that well known bug when trying to print search results from the Tools -> Instant Search -> Advanced Find feature in Table Style.   It’s almost as if they were trying their best to stump the product.

What they may not have realized is that even though the Advanced Find option is listed under the new Instant Search menu, it is really the old iteration of Outlook searching.    There are a couple of workarounds, including copying the Advanced Find search results into a new subfolder, and then printing that folder in Table Style.  However, the best thing they can do is use the Instant Search bar of their mailbox itself.  The syntax of this search can include metadata criteria in addition to keywords, and when using Cached Mode with Windows 7, the search truly is instant.

Outlook 2007 Instant Search

The other nice feature is the suggestion to search All Mail Items if you aren’t happy with the results.    And printing in Table Style from these results works like a charm.

So what about Outlook 2010?  Is this still a bug?  No!  So did Microsoft fix it?  No!  Looks like they simply removed the File menu options in the Advanced Search dialog, so you can’t print from here.   They are sneaky like that…..   See for yourself:

Outlook 2010 - Advanced Find

In summary, for your email searching needs, you should advise your users to begin using the Instant Search feature.  The Advanced Find is dying a slow death.

A couple weeks ago I blogged about the XML patent infringement that Microsoft had to deal with.  As mentioned in that post, they’ve released new code that removes some of the custom XML functionality that was built into the Office 2007 system, and brings them into patent compliance.

We’ve just heard that there is at least one vendor whose product is now basically non-functional due to the code change.   This sort of problem can result in products needing to be completely re-engineered to work with the new XML limitations.

Organizations who have already implemented or are looking to implement Office 2007 should reach out to any third-party vendor who would be integrating with the Office 2007 XML format to determine compatibility with the new rules.  In addition, any custom code that has already been written would need to be tested and possibly re-written if any issues come up.

Kraft Kennedy has worked with numerous third-party vendors that integrate with Office 2007.  If you find yourself in a tough spot due to this issue, let us know and we can help walk you through the process of finding the right solution.

As you may have read, a judge recently upheld a court ruling which bans Microsoft from selling Word 2007 after January 11, 2010, due an XML patent infringement.  That was yesterday.

Today, Microsoft announced that they have released a patch which corrects the patent infringement, bringing the Office 2007 code under compliance:

The 2007 Microsoft Office OPK Master Kit Download, available on Microsoft’s OEM Partner Center, strips Word and other Office programs of custom XML editing capabilities.

“The following patch is required for the United States,” Microsoft said in a message on the site.

The 2007 Microsoft Office OPK Master Kit Download (12.9 MB) can be found at the Microsoft OEM Partner Center.  The site also says:

After this patch is installed, Word will no longer read the Custom XML elements contained within DOCX, DOCM, or XML files. These files will continue to open, but any Custom XML elements will be removed. The ability to handle custom XML markup is typically used in association with automated server based processing of Word documents. Custom XML is not typically used by most end users of Word.

Pretty quick turnaround, but I have a feeling they were working on this for a while…