Outlook 2000 and Outlook 2002 iCalendar interoperability problems (307313)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Outlook 2000
  • Microsoft Outlook 2002
  • Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
This article was previously published under Q307313

SYMPTOMS

When you receive a meeting request in Microsoft Outlook 2000 from a Microsoft Outlook 2002 user or a Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 user, the meeting request may appear as a message with a message body that contains text. This text represents the iCalendar data. This issue affects clients when they are configured to use Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP), Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3), and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).

CAUSE

This behavior occurs because Outlook 2000 clients do not correctly interpret the TRIGGER keyword when a hyphen symbol (-) is present. Outlook 2000 clients incorrectly emit the TRIGGER keyword without the hyphen.

The TRIGGER keyword in the VALARM object contains a hyphen to denote a time before the start of the event. The TRIGGER keyword notes an alarm that should take place 15 minutes before the start of this meeting request.

This is the correct behavior per RFC2445 section 4.8.6.3.

Outlook 2002 clients and Office Outlook 2003 clients do correctly interpret the TRIGGER keyword when a hyphen is present. Additionally, Outlook 2002 clients and Office Outlook 2003 clients tolerate the omission of a hyphen. Outlook 2002 clients and Office Outlook 2003 clients correctly emit the TRIGGER keyword with the hyphen.

WORKAROUND

To work around this behavior, omit the meeting reminder from the appointment when you submit a meeting request from an Outlook 2002 client or an Office Outlook 2003 client to Outlook 2000 clients. The meeting reminder is the option that causes the TRIGGER keyword to be used.

MORE INFORMATION

The iCalendar specification is discussed in RFC2445.

The following information is an example of the data that can appear in the message body of the Outlook 2000 client: 
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Microsoft Corporation//Outlook 10.0 MIMEDIR//EN
VERSION:2.0
METHOD:REQUEST
BEGIN:VEVENT
ATTENDEE;CN=outlook2002@company.com;ROLE=REQ-PARTICIPANT;RSVP=TRUE:MAILTO:outlook2002@company.com
ORGANIZER:MAILTO:outlook2000@company.com
DTSTART:20010823T023000Z
DTEND:20010823T030000Z
LOCATION:my office
TRANSP:OPAQUE
SEQUENCE:0
UID:040000008200E00074C5B7101A82E00800000000903FC6413F2BC101000000000000000010000000D05E59B078F19941AD2E25FCACF8BD60
DTSTAMP:20010823T021842Z
DESCRIPTION:When: Wednesday\, August 22\, 2001 7:30 PM-8:00 PM (GMT-08:00)
  Pacific Time (US & Canada)\; Tijuana.\nWhere: my
  office\n\n*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*\n\n\n
SUMMARY:Important Business Meeting with 15 minute reminder
PRIORITY:5
CLASS:PUBLIC
BEGIN:VALARM
TRIGGER:-PT15M
ACTION:DISPLAY
DESCRIPTION:Reminder
END:VALARM
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

REFERENCES

For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

823199 Cannot open iCalendar format (*.ics) file

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:1/30/2006
Keywords:kbreceivemail kbcalendar kbemail kbnofix kbprb KB307313
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