Outlook Fast Search doesn't return results

Symptom: You're in outlook, and the search results aren't as expected, or not returning anything.

Check here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/instant-search-is-not-finding-items-HA010198085.aspx

VERIFY THAT YOUR OUTLOOK DATA FILES CAN BE INDEXED
Outlook indexes the following data files:

Personal Folders files (.pst)
Offline Folder files (.ost)
This includes Microsoft Windows Live Mail, IMAP, and POP e-mail accounts. If you use a Microsoft Exchange account (much more common in business e-mail systems than in a home or personal account), you must be connected to the server running Exchange and use Cached Exchange Mode for Instant Search to index your messages. Cached Exchange Mode uses an Offline Folders file (.ost) to save your information on your computer. To verify which data files are being indexed, do the following:
On the Tools menu, point to Instant Search, and then click Search Options.
Alternatively, click the arrow in the Instant Search pane, and then click Search Options on the menu.

Under Indexing, verify that the data files that you want to include in your search are selected in the Index messages in these data files list.
VERIFY THAT INDEXING IS COMPLETE
To verify the indexing status, do the following:

On the Tools menu, point to Instant Search, and then click Indexing Status.
Alternatively, click the arrow in the Instant Search pane, and then click Indexing Status on the menu.

Verify that the dialog box reports 0 items remaining. If not, indexing is not complete and needs to finish before all of your Outlook items can be searched.
INDEXING STATUS REPORTS "0 ITEMS REMAINING," HOWEVER, SEARCH RESULTS ARE NOT CORRECT
If the Indexing Status reports 0 items remaining and Instant Search is still not returning the correct search results, exit Outlook and restart your computer. When you start Outlook again, verify that Outlook is indexing your items properly by doing the following:

On the Tools menu, point to Instant Search, and then click Indexing Status.
Alternatively, click the arrow in the Instant Search pane, and then click Indexing Status on the menu.

Verify that the number of items in the Indexing Status dialog box has increased. If the number has not increased, you must wait until indexing is complete for the results.

While you're looking at the checkboxes for what is supposed to be indexed, if you would like to start from scratch, clear the box[es] and OK through to exit the index search. Then go back and check them again, and OK out. This is what will take a few hours, but it will now index your email as if it never had done it before. Verify on occasion. The numbers should increase for a while, then decrease back to zero. Once completed, your index has been rebuilt.

Find a delegate in Outlook from Active Directory

The problem occurs when one of the employees that was configured as a delegate (for example user A) has left the company. When user B sends a meeting request for the manager, user B will receive an NDR because user A no longer exists in Active Directory, but is still configured as a delegate for user B.

The answer is here.

Outlook won't connect if no default gateway on NIC

Outlook won't connect to the Exchange server if you don't have a default gateway on your network card. Why would you have this problem? I didn't have a default gateway because I was temporarily using the PC as dual homed (two network cards). I wanted the default gateway to be set on one card and not the other. Then I repurposed the machine without checking and using the NIC that didn't have the gateway. Outlook balked, and I panicked a slight bit. How is it possible that I have every network (Internet, files, database, etc.) and no Exchange connectivity? Especially since my other box is chugging away perfectly on Exchange. Exchange error messages actually said this, and sure enough, it was correct.

Phantom Recipient in Outlook Meeting Request

A user emailed me that she was sending a meeting request to another user via Outlook but it bounced because it was also being sent to a user who was no longer in our system.

It turned out that the recipient's Outlook client Tools, Options, Delegates still had that old user listed, which was then removed.

Microsoft Outlook won't connect to Exchange Server

I was troubleshooting an issue where the Outlook client wouldn't connect to Exchange Server. It wasn't a ping issue (I could ping the server) and it wasn't domain resolution. I also could view the one user's Outlook Web Access Account. It simply wouldn't connect Outlook to Exchange, either hanging on profile creation, or giving an error on connect.

To fix this, I went to c:\documents and settings\username\local settings\application data\microsoft\outlook and added a new folder "old" and moved the stuff in outlook folder to "old" and tried again. This apparently cleaned itself up.

Outlook quick-launch idea

Look, it's an idea. If someone else has it, this is notification that I haven't seen this implemented in this way before.

The implementation of the icon for Outlook 2007 is .. well, it's meh, ok?

Here's what I'd like to happen:

1. Outlook that's minimized disappears from the taskbar, but can be re-opened from the status icon (by the clock)
   
2. The Outlook status icon is a launching pad for what Outlook does, navigation/popup withOUT clicking:
   
   
   
   1. Inbox (New#)
      
   2. Calendar
      
   3. Tasks/Todo List
      
   4. Contacts
      
   
   

The idea is that you'd hover your mouse over the clock icon, and left-to-right above the icon, you'd have the above list a-d in a single horizontal row. Hovering over each of those would have a context-sensitive pop-up above that bar.
For Inbox, that would be a brief list of the 10 most recent emails: From, Subject, Date, first line of email.
For Calendar, that would be a month calendar over a scrollable list of itinerary (like Google Calendar's applet for iGoogle). Perhaps this may or may not be in combination with Tasks/Todo lists
For Contacts, that would be some painless way to get that phone number or write that email.

In addition, there should be some underlying "search everything for what I'm looking for".

Exchange 2003 Outlook Mobile Access 1801 error

OK, There is absolutely almost no answer on the web for the MSExchangeOMA 1801 error. That’s because stock users of Exchange and IIS won’t have the issue that I had.

The very short answer: WebDav defaults to checking for stuff via IIS http on port 80.

If your IIS has another HTTP (not SSL/HTTPS) port as all it’s listening on, OMA/Outlook Mobile Access will not work. Make sure port 80 is listened to by IIS.

Why I had Internet Information Server on another port:

It was a legacy issue. I had OWA/Outlook Web Access through a firewall on a non-standard port. OWA does NOT like firewall port not matching IIS port. So HTTP port on IIS was chosen to match the firewall port for IIS for NON-SSL traffic. Later, I didn’t need non-SSL traffic for OWA and didn’t bother to change the IIS port. When OMA came up with

Unable to connect to your mailbox on server Servername. Please try again later. If the problem persists contact your administrator.

It was because it was attempting to contact internally via WebDAV on WebDAV’s default connection: http://Servername:80/Exchange/mailbox

the :80 (hidden, but the default port for web) was not accessible because my default http port on IIS wasn’t listening on port 80. This caused the same error from outside my firewall all the way to trying the OMA connection at localhost on my exchange server.

Thanks to
http://www.petri.co.il/configure_oma.htm
http://www.petri.co.il/configure_ssl_on_oma.htm
http://www.petri.co.il/test_oma_in_exchange_2003.htm

for knocking me in the head about things I didn’t realize I hadn’t done.