Microsoft Outlook 2010 : Options for Starting Outlook

When you install Outlook 2010, Setup places a Microsoft Outlook 2010 icon on the Start menu. You can start Outlook 2010 normally by clicking the icon. You also can start Outlook 2010 by using the Programs menu (choose Start, All Programs, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Outlook 2010).

Outlook uses a profile to store account settings and configure Outlook for your email servers, directory services, address books, data files, and other settings. You can configure Outlook to either prompt you to choose a profile (if multiple profiles exist) or have it use a specific one by default. Figure 1 shows Outlook prompting to choose a profile.

Figure 1. Outlook 2010 prompts you to choose a profile at startup.

To use an existing profile, simply select it in the drop-down list in the Choose Profile dialog box and then click OK. Click New to create a new profile . Click Options in the Choose Profile dialog box, to display the option Set As Default Profile. Select this option to specify the selected profile as the default profile, which will appear in the drop-down list by default in subsequent Outlook 2010 sessions. For example, if you maintain separate personal and work profiles and your personal profile always appears in the drop-down list, but you want the work profile to show up by default instead, select your work profile and then choose Set As Default Profile to make the work profile the default.

Safe mode is a startup mode available in Outlook 2010 and the other Office system applications. Safe mode makes it possible for Office system applications to recover automatically from specific errors during startup, such as a problem with an add-in or a corrupt registry setting. Safe mode allows Outlook 2010 to detect the problem and either correct it or bypass it by isolating the source.

In certain situations, you might want to force Outlook 2010 into safe mode when it would otherwise start normally—for example, if you want to prevent add-ins or customized toolbars or command bars from loading. To start Outlook 2010 (or any other Office system application) in safe mode, hold down the Ctrl key and start the program. Outlook 2010 detects the Ctrl key and asks whether you want to start Outlook 2010 in safe mode. Click Yes to start in safe mode or No to start normally.

If Outlook is running in safe mode and you want to view and/or enable a disabled add-in, click File, Options, and click Add-Ins in the left pane of the Outlook Options dialog box. Near the bottom of the dialog box, choose Disabled Items from the Manage drop-down list, then click Go. Outlook displays the Disabled Items dialog box, which lists the disabled items and lets you enable them. Given that Outlook disabled the items for a reason, you should generally re-enable them only if you know that they will not cause a problem.

Figure 2. Use the Disbaled Items dialog box to view and manage disabled items.

If you start an application in safe mode, you cannot perform certain actions in the application. The following is a summary of these actions (not all of which apply to Outlook 2010):

To start Outlook 2010 normally, simply shut down the program and start it again without pressing the Ctrl key.

If you're like most Microsoft Office system users, you work in Outlook 2010 a majority of the time. Because Outlook 2010 is such an important aspect of your workday, you might want it to start automatically when you log on to your computer, saving you the trouble of starting it later. Although you have a few options for starting Outlook 2010 automatically, the best solution is to place a shortcut to Outlook 2010 in your Startup folder.

To start Outlook 2010 automatically when you start Windows, simply drag the Outlook icon from the Start menu or Quick Launch bar to the Startup folder in the Start menu.

Windows 7 enables you to pin programs to the Start menu and Windows taskbar, making the programs easily accessible. You can then simply click the program's icon on the Start menu or taskbar to open the program. To pin Outlook to the Windows 7 Start menu or taskbar, click Start, All Programs, and Microsoft Office, and then right-click Microsoft Outlook 2010 and choose Pin To Start Menu or Pin To Taskbar.

Let's assume that you've created a shortcut to Outlook 2010 on your Quick Launch bar or in another location so that you can start Outlook 2010 quickly. Why change the shortcut? By adding switches to the command that starts Outlook 2010, you can customize the way that the application starts and functions for the current session. You can also control the Outlook 2010 startup window state (normal, minimized, or maximized) through the shortcut's properties. For example, you might want Outlook 2010 to start automatically when you log on, but you want it to start minimized. In this situation, you would create a shortcut to Outlook 2010 in your Startup folder and then modify the shortcut so that Outlook 2010 starts minimized.

To change the properties for a shortcut, locate the shortcut, right-click its icon, and then choose Properties. You should see a Properties page similar to the one shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. A typical Properties page for an Outlook 2010 shortcut.

The following list summarizes the options on the Shortcut tab of the Properties page:

When you're satisfied with the shortcut's properties, click OK to close the Properties dialog box.

Outlook 2010 supports a number of command-line switches that modify the way the program starts and functions. Although you can issue the Outlook.exe command with switches from a command prompt, it's generally more useful to specify switches through a shortcut, particularly if you want to use the same set of switches more than once. Table 1 lists some of the startup switches that you can use to modify the way Outlook 2010 starts and functions.

When you start Outlook 2010, it defaults to using the Inbox view, but you might prefer to use a different view or folder as the initial view. For example, if you use Outlook 2010 primarily for scheduling, you'll probably want Outlook 2010 to start in the Calendar folder. If you use Outlook 2010 mainly to manage contacts, you'll probably want it to start in the Contacts folder.

To specify the view that should appear when Outlook 2010 starts, follow these steps:

If you switch Outlook 2010 to a different default folder and then want to restore Outlook Today as your default view, you can follow the preceding steps to restore Outlook Today as the default.

Simply select Outlook Today in the drop-down list or follow these steps with the Outlook Today window open:

In some cases, you might want to create new Outlook 2010 items directly from the Start menu, the taskbar, or a shortcut icon without first opening the Outlook program window. For example, perhaps you would like an icon that starts a new email message and another icon that starts a new appointment item. With Outlook 2010, you can access these items right from the Start menu without any additional setup. Just click Start, pause the mouse over Outlook 2010 (or click the Expand button at the right of the menu), and choose the type of item that you want to create from the cascading menu that appears. If Outlook is pinned to the taskbar in Windows 7, you can also right-click the Outlook icon in the taskbar and, from the Tasks section of the menu, choose the type of Outlook item to create.

You can also create a shortcut to a mailto: item on the desktop or on the Quick Launch bar to make it easy to create a new email message. Here's how to create the shortcut:

When you double-click the shortcut, Outlook 2010 starts and prompts you for a profile unless a default profile has been set. However, only the new message form appears—the rest of Outlook 2010 stays hidden, running in the background.

You can use the Target property of an Outlook 2010 shortcut to create other types of Outlook 2010 items. For example, the following two shortcuts start a new message and a new appointment, respectively:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\Outlook.exe" /c ipm.note

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\Outlook.exe" /c ipm.appointment