Outlook 2003 stops responding when a user tries to retrieve an attendee's free/busy information (906176)

SYMPTOMS

When a Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 user tries to retrieve an attendee's free/busy information, Outlook 2003 stops responding. This problem occurs if all the following conditions are true:

The attendee's calendar contains an all-day event that spans more than one month and that is marked as busy.
The attendee's free/busy information was last updated by a Microsoft Collaboration Data Objects (CDO) program, such as BlackBerry.

CAUSE

This problem occurs because the CDO program cannot handle a condition in which the start time of an appointment occurs before the end time of another appointment. The CDO program cannot handle this condition in the following situations:

When the CDO program generates free/busy information for appointments that span from one month to the next month
When the CDO program generates free/busy information for appointments that span a period that is longer than 45 days

RESOLUTION

Hotfix information

A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct the problem that is described in this article. Only apply it to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix may receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 service pack that contains this hotfix.

To resolve this problem immediately, contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services telephone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support

Note In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question.

Prerequisites

You must install Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) before you install the hotfix.

Restart requirement

You do not have to restart the computer after you install the hotfix.

Hotfix replacement information

This hotfix does not replace any other hotfixes.

File information

The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later file attributes) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

File name	File version	File size	Date	Time	Platform
Cdo.dll	6.5.7233.55	709,632	31-Oct-2005	22:44	x86

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, you can use the /CleanFreeBusy switch at a command prompt to start Outlook 2003. To do this, follow these steps:

Quit Outlook 2003.
Click Start, click Run, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
"Drive_Letter:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe" /CleanFreeBusy
Note Enclose the path of the Outlook.exe file in quotation marks. Also, type a space before you type the switch option. Drive_Letter:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11 is the folder where Outlook 2003 is typically installed.

You must use the /CleanFreeBusy switch every time after a CDO program updates the free/busy information.

MORE INFORMATION

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

824684 Description of the standard terminology that is used to describe Microsoft software updates

817903 New naming schema for Exchange Server software update packages