Sharing Microsoft Outlook Calendar and Contacts - Microsoft Office  Add-in and Add-on Software.

 

Shared Outlook - Outlook sharing. Welcome to the Association of Shareware Professionals!

 

 

 

OLfolders - Updates & version history

The following table gives information, which functions (features) were added in a new version and which errors (Bugs) were eliminated.

Functions (Features)

Version
  • Error with Office 2016. The newest build of office 2016 crashes if MAPILogonEx is called in a different thread.
3.5.3.
  • Setup detects the Outlook version and bitness and installs the components required for the given version and bitness (32 or 64)
  • The server checks the bit size at start up and warns if OLfolders is 32 bit and Outlook 64 bit or vice versa.
  • Speed optimization
  • OLfolders server starts with visible window if no users are in the data base. It opens on left click on the icon.
  • IMap folders no longer presented because they can crash the server (Elements in IMAP may not be present but will be loaded later).
3.4.2
  • Sometimes it was possible to users with read-only access modified elements if server connected to Outlook 2013

 

3.4.1

  • Support for Office 15

  • Removed crash if internet connection is unavailable during mail transport

 

3.3.1

  • Outlook 2010 wants any POP3 server to implement CAPA, if this command is not implementd, POP3 stops, which is against recomondation in RFC2449. OLfolders now implements CAPA.

  • An uninitialized variable sometimes made the server command GetUIDFromNames unusable, it then returned only a part of the data. This applies 64bit clients and servers.

 

3.2g

  • A buffer overflow in trace operations could have caused a crash n some cases.

3.2e

  • 64 bit version of OLfolders client and server

  • Changes on installing the DLLs into the MAPISVC.INF file.

3.2

  • Colored group calendar
    The server combines different sub folders into a single group calendar and displays appointments from each folder in the color belonging to that folder.

  • Automatically setup of internet free/busy. The server creates a directory and a share, this gets distributed to all clients which in turn automatically setup up the internet free/busy feature.

3.0

  • Link conversion: OLfolders now converts links to contacts and embedded objects between Server and Client. All links are now stored in the form which is used by the PST file, if a client opens an object, all links are converted to the OLfolders format and vice versa

  • Strict record locking: Optinally, a stricter mode in record locking can be enabled, this disallows opening elements if another user has opened the element (even in preview window). This way we can disallow that two persons are answering the same email at the same time.

  • Profile repair included: Now each time Tools/OLFolders is closed. The profile repair known from OLFix runs automatically and repairs all profiles. This is usually invisible, however if anything has been repaired, a message appears.

2.9

Speed optimizations

  • A new program is now able to check if the server(s) are running and are accessible. Usually if you have a connection to an OLfolders server but the server is not available, OLfolders needs about 30 seconds to discover, slowing down the Outlook start. The 30 seconds are the built in timeout for TCP/IP connections which can not be made much faster.

    We have written a small program which checks every now and then if the server can be accessed, this way the client is able to ask this program and discover an offline server within very shot time without even doing network access. Please start OLfolders Check Server from the start menu.

  • Speed optimizations at client and server

2.8.5

Changes in OLWWatchdog:

  • If the server does not shut down itself after it receives the shut down command, OLWWatchdog terminates the server using the task manager.

  • OLWWatchdog is optionally able to send a simple query to the server every 30 seconds, if the server does not respond, it will get terminated and re-started.

Normally, OLfolders should not hang, hanging is usually a result of a damaged profile, data file, disk, network etc. The watchdog is able to re-start the server automatically, but if the server needs to be re-started, the data file, profile, disk image etc. should also be tested. A damaged data file or disk surface may result in bigger problems.

2.8.3

  • The Server is able to automatically close sub objects of messages in case the clients forgots to close them. If objects are not closed, over a certain time, the server will be out of memory and report MAPI_E_OUT_OF_MEMORY.

    This is out of the MAPI standard, clients are allowed to close the message first, then continue use the sub elements, with this option enabled, some add-ins might not work, others may work better.

2.8.3

  • Problem on forwarding emails: If the data at the server is in format 2003/2007, OLfolders did not include attachments. This problem is solved in version 2.8.2. The update is at the client side, only.

2.8.2

  • PST transport for outgoing objects. Using this, you can collect all outgoing message from any client in a single or in multiple folders at the server. In order to use this, you need to enable the mail server and configure all clients to send via OLfolders mail proxy

2.8.1

  • Update for Outlook 2007

2.8

  • Outlook does no longer need to be the standard mail client. If it is not, OLfolders sets the default email client temporary during startup.

  • Sometimes, broken PST files return complete nonsense and make the any application (including Outlook) crash. OLfolders now can detect some of this condition and returns - for example - empty strings. In case of defect PST files, you should run SCANPST in order to repair the file.

  • Better timeout for POP3, the POP transport is now faster and connection aborts can still be detected.

2.7.1

  • Connection to QMailFilter

  • Using QMailFilter, OLfolders has access to a data base driven Bayes-Filter and is able to separate SPAM emails while it is downloading emails. You train the filter by moving messages between the spam folder and the inbox folders from any workstation. After moving, start training the spam filter.
    At least one license key for QMailFilter is required, this may also be a test license for OLfolders.

2.7

 

  • Server Optimization

  • OLfolders is now available in two versions, one containing the trace output, one without the trace. Because creating the texts for the traces also takes time, we re-compiled the product with and without trace support.

  • Outlook 2007

  • Outlook 2007 sometimes crashed with OLfolders, appropriate adjustments and modifications were made.

  • New setup

  • Contains now QSynchronization as optional component.

  • Data file selection

  • OLFolders no longer filters the data file type on connection setup, previous versions allow sharing only PST files, now all types of data files can be shared: PST Files, Microsoft Exchange personal and private Store, BCM etc.

  • With sharing Exchange stores, OLfolders provides a way for connecting to two or more Exchange servers at the same time and copying items between them by configuring each Exchange account in a different profile and connecting to this profile with a local server.

  • Some store providers may not be compatible with OLFolders and cause errors, for example if certain functions are not available.

2.6.3

  • Server stability

  • OLfolders now behaves better if small errors are found in the PST file, for example on certain errors and object will be closed and re-opened.
    Note: If the PST file is damaged in a way that even Outlook crashes on accessing certain elements, OLfolders will as well have problems. If this is the case, use SCANPST to repair the file or export it to a new one.

  • Evaluation version with evaluation key.

  • The OLfoldersServer now has its own automatic 30 days evaluation phase for 1 client without ordering an evaluation key.

  • New registry path for settings

  • If insufficient user rights are present, OLFolders stores registry values in HKEY_CURRENT_USER and files in c:\documents and settings (if present)

  • Modified folder right

  • The folder right "save settings" protects changing for example a few in a folder. (Thanks to forum user Kerstin for this idea).

 

2.6

  • New user right: Write protect folder settings and views. This user right write protects the "associated contents folder", this folder contains settings, forms and views. If you have the problem, that users modify your folder views, you now can write protect the settings folder. If a user changes a view, for example accidentally drop a column, the changes will no longer be saved.
    The user is still able to select between views and this is still stored, the views however are no longer stored.
    Record locking now checks if the element is read-write opened by another session, the same client is able to open the element in read-write-mode many times. Now it is possible to modify elements in folder view. Outlook opens an element twice in read-write mode if you modify something in folder view, which previously made record locking return a read-only element for the second element, this is the element, outlook wanted to modify.

  • Auto-close folders after a given time. Some Outlooks or some add-ins like to open every folder available, if such a client is logging on, the server will, for example open 200 folder elements which the client is not actively using. OLfolders is now able to close elements for example after 30 seconds. If a client accesses the folder again, the folder is opened by the server right before it is accessed.

  • Mail Server: Clients are able to force mail transport by issuing Send/Receive within a given time. If a client presses Send/Receive for example within 30 seconds, the mail server will start mail transport, e.g. getting external mails and sending pending outgoing mails. The client will get blocked during the mail transport, so that all new mails are received within the second send/receive request. Mail transport will be made even if OLfolders is configured to be offline during this hour.
    Because mail transport can take a certain amount of time, blocking the client has its own time out or can be disabled.

  • New user right: Hide folder. A folder can now be hidden for certain users, this folder will completely disappear.

  • Easier administration of user rights: User rights are saved without pressing the "apply" button.The user selection remains if the folders are changed.

  • OLfolders has been made compatible with Reminder Manager. In order to be able to configure OLfolders with Reminder Manager, you need the newest version of both application: OLFolders 2.5.2 and Reminder Manager 2.0.11.

  • New help files. The manual has been re-written in windows-help format.

  • Security update: Folder rights now also work in search folders.

  • Reminders from shared folders (Client). Many clients asked for it: Reminders from shared folders.
    The OLFolders client component now is able to synchronize reminders from a given set of data files, such as shared folders into a local folder. The wizard creates a new folder in the local tree ("local reminders") and synchronizes all reminders from other data files into this new folder. The local reminder system can be extended to include "shared reminders" and its sub folders.

  • OLfolders menu reoganization (Client). Because OLfolders now uses 4 menu items in the Tools menu, all items have been moved to a sub menu.

  • Sync categories (Client). Because each version of Outlook uses a different place in the registry to store the categories list, OLFolders sometimes did not find the correct entry. It now simply reads all entries from all places.

  • Forward emails to extern (server). Email forwarding from the user account now works for external addresses, also.
    HTML conversion (Server). Normally, the server converts all emails which contain only a text body or only a html body into the rich text format, because some Outlook clients are unable to display emails which contain only the html or text body. If all clients in your network support this, conversion is not needed and can be turned off.

  • Less Threads (Server). Because of a deadlock, some of the background processes in the OLfolders servers have been combined into a single low priority thread.

  • Bug removal: In some error conditions, the server might hang or terminate itself.

2.5

Top of page