Bug in Office Outlook 2007 - Internet Explorer component can cause outlook to stop responding

[Jeroen Landheer]

Hello.

There is a bug in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 (and possibly earlier
versions) that can cause Outlook to behave in an unexpected manner. (Not
reacting to mouse clicks, etc.) I found this bug while working on a
development project and decided to post it here for the purpose of helping
out. Here are the steps to reproduce the bug:

1: Create a simple HTM file with the following text: <input type=button
value="Close Window" onclick="window.close()">
2: Save this file to some location.
3: Open Microsoft Outlook
4: Navigate inside outlook using the web toolbar to some website.
(http://www.microsoft.com/office for example)
5: Drag & drop the HTM file in the browser. The close button should now be
displayed.
6: If you get an information bar, allow blocked content to run
7: Click the button, and when asked: click "Yes" to close the window.

From this point, Outlook gets into a unresponsive state. The right pane
(where the browser is) does not react to input. The window still can be
moved around, resized and so on. Outlook can be normally closed without
crashing. But it is impossible to put something else in the right pane
again. (Like a new browser, an email message, etc.)

Ofcourse you might think that all these warning messages should not be
ignored, but when launching the same HTM page from a website, the only
question that is asked, is if the user wants to close the window... (i.e. no
information bar) and that is misleading because Outlook does not (and in my
opinion should not) close.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,


Jeroen.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

I disagree- it is (more or less) working as expected - the close button is
trying to close the browser but unfortunately, since its in outlook, it can
cause outlook to be unstable. The info bar warning is also expected as
outlook offers tighter security than IE.









** Please include your Outlook version, Account type, and Windows Version
when requesting assistance **

 

[Jeroen Landheer]

Hi Diane

About the infobar, I absolutely agree with you. But let's face it, Outlook
should not become unstable on a script that can be run from any Internet
site, should it? (And in that case, you do not get an infobar, just a
question: "Do you want to close this window?")

Outlook can easily check for this close event and cancel it before the user
is asked, I think it is up to Microsoft to fix this.

Best regards,


Jeroen.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

It won't be fixed, that I can tell you. What your Close button should do to
avoid the problem is to navigate back to a Web page when Close is clicked.
MS is in the process of deprecating use of Outlook folder views of Web pages
and severely restricting them in the meantime, so things aren't going to
change.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Well, the only part I agree with is that it should not make outlook
unstable. This is part of the reason why Outlook-as-a-browser is depreciated
and discouraged.









** Please include your Outlook version, Account type, and Windows Version
when requesting assistance **