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Outlook forms change slightly with each new version of
Outlook, both in terms of the standard Outlook forms, and the features that are
available to you when you customize the forms. The number of changes vary
depending on the type of form that you use. For example, the Post form has
undergone very few changes, both in the standard form, and in the customizable
features. However, the Contact form has changed much more. With Outlook 98, you
can customize the first page of the Contact form. With Outlook 2000, there is
an Activities page for the form. Corresponding changes have also been made to
the Outlook object model.
Custom Outlook form solutions vary greatly
because there are different types of Outlook features and programming
technologies that you can use to create a custom form. When you create a custom
form to use with different versions of Outlook, it is important to consider the
following topics:
- Know which versions of Outlook will use the
form.
- Design the form by using the oldest version of
Outlook.
- Consider the Outlook feature sets.
- Test the form on all versions of Outlook.
Know Which Versions of Outlook Will Use the Form
Before you begin to design a form, it is recommended that you
research which versions of Outlook are being used within your
organization.
If you determine that more than one version of Outlook
is being used, you may want to upgrade the older versions of Outlook to the
newer version of Outlook. This helps ensure that your form will be compatible,
and it reduces the complexity of the environment that the form will be used in.
This, in turn, may also help reduce the time that it takes you to develop and
test the form.
Design the Form by Using the Oldest Version of Outlook
In general, you can use any type of Outlook custom form with any
version of Outlook. However, you cannot use an Outlook 98, Outlook 2000, or
Outlook 2002 custom Contact form in Outlook 97.
Almost all custom
form features work with all versions of Outlook, such as standard fields,
user-defined fields, custom controls, calculated field expressions, Microsoft
Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript), and so on. The only problem that may
occur is if you use a custom form or object model feature that is available in
one version of Outlook but not in another version of Outlook, or if you use a
feature that has changed between versions.
To help ensure
compatibility between versions of Outlook, it is recommended that you design
your custom forms by using the earliest version of Outlook that will use the
form. For example, if your organization uses Outlook 98, Outlook 2000, and
Outlook 2002, and the form will be used in a public folder on a computer that
uses Microsoft Exchange Server, use Outlook 98 to design the custom
form.
Later versions of Outlook are specifically designed to be
compatible with earlier versions of Outlook. However, earlier versions of
Outlook may not be able to interact with all of the new features that have been
added to a later version of Outlook.
If you use a custom form that
was created with an earlier version of Outlook, such as Outlook 98, it will
work well on a later version of Outlook, such as Outlook 2000, but it may not
work as well on an earlier version of Outlook, such as Outlook 97.
Consider the Outlook Feature Sets
When you design a custom form for more than one version of
Outlook, consider how features may have changed between versions. If your
custom form is designed with these new features, you may experience
compatibility problems between Outlook versions.
For example, Outlook
2000 introduces a new contact linking feature and a corresponding
Links collection in the Outlook object model. If you design a custom
form in Outlook 2000, and then use VBScript to access the
Links collection, the form does not function in Outlook 98 because the
object model in the earlier version of Outlook does not support the
Links collection.
Test the Form on All Versions of Outlook
If the custom form that you create will be used with different
versions of Outlook, it is recommended that you test the form with each version
of Outlook that will use the form.