After upgrading to Outlook 2003, I still couldn’t get it to remember my passwords or connect reliably. So I was determined to get some satisfaction and went through what seems to be the sole remaining avenue for tech support on registered products at Microsoft without paying extra: the web support form. My expectations were low, but I was surprised and humbled.
I got a swift answer (within a few hours at most) and it was in fact the solution to my problem. I am humbled and a bit humiliated that I must have switched the Protected Storage service to manual at some point and it has to be started for this feature of Outlook to work. Obscure, but true.
I had worked through Google, the Knowledge Base, my registry, and even tried creating new users on my system, everything failed. And here came this polite reply and clear instructions, respectful tone…like a fantasy of ideal tech support. Aside from having to log in through Passport, there’s even a system that tracks your issues, notifies you by email when they’re updated, etc. It works.
I don’t know the emoticon for deep embarassment, but I do seem to have a working installation of Outlook and a grudging respect for Microsoft’s tech support. Maybe I just got lucky?
Related posts:
Just read about your spammer problem. I’ve installed a free MT plug-in called MT_Blacklist, which helps eradicate
comment and trackback spam.
http://www.jayallen.org/projects/mt-blacklist/
Since installing it, I’ve had only two spam comments get through, but it was a breeze se-spamming them, or getting rid of them altogether, and adding them to the blacklist.
Hope this helps.