How do I keep work and personal Outlook separate?

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Hello Helpful Ones,

In an attempt to become more organized for the New Year, my wife and I have
decided to use Outlook to manage our contacts and calendars, and to
synchronize this with our cell phones.

There are two Windows computers involved, both running Office 2003: Her work
computer, and our home computer (which we use for Her Work, My Work, and Our
Personal). Ideally, we would like to have a "His & Hers" set-up so that she
could have Her Work and Our Personal info together, and I could have His Work
and Our Personal together - and Her info could be synchronized between her
work and home computers via her cell phone device (and my phone would synch
with my info from the same home computer).

I can't find much info about this, and before I spend many hours trying to
figure this out on my own, I'd like to know if this is even possible. Any
advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks so much,
Gus
 
Thanks, Mary. From what I gather, it looks like I need to add a piece of
software called "Business Contacts Manager" and get a Microsoft Server
Exchange account. This sounds unnecessarily expensive and complicated for
our needs. Perhaps there is another program out there that will allow us to
do this in a more elegant fashion. Or perhaps I'm making it too complicated.
Any further thoughts from anybody? Thanks, Gus
 
Thanks, Mary. From what I gather, it looks like I need to add a
piece of software called "Business Contacts Manager" and get a
Microsoft Server Exchange account.

Probably not.
This sounds unnecessarily
expensive and complicated for our needs. Perhaps there is another
program out there that will allow us to do this in a more elegant
fashion. Or perhaps I'm making it too complicated. Any further
thoughts from anybody?

First, you want separate Windows usernames for each of you on the home PC.
That will give you the "his and hers" setup and allow each of you to sync
work data with what's on the home PC while keeping the data for the two of
you separate.

Then, each of you could also use two mail profiles: one for your work data
(which you'll sync with your work computers) and one for your home data.
Because you'd use separate mail profiles, your work and home data will be
separate. If you both want to share home data between your accounts, you
can by having that data located in a shared folder, like Shared Documents.

There are also other configurations that might work and we can go into those
as well, if you'd like.
 
Wow, many thanks, Brian. I just finished a very long reply to you, but my
Microsoft Passport Access must have timed out and it was eaten when I tried
to send it. Which is just as well, so here's the condensed version: Do we
have to use Outlook for our email, or can we just fake it so we can keep the
contact info and Calendar functions separate? We used Outlook 6 or 8 years
ago briefly for email and found it to be a huge pain. Also, our longstanding
AOL account has almost all of our email contacts already, we 're just limited
by our phones to synching only with Outlook.

Here's what we're currently running and happy with: DSL from SBC Yahoo, but
email and access through shared AOL account. Wife can access her work email
from home via Explorer and "MDaemon World Client ver. 8.1.1" Her company has
their own web-site, and her work email is of the "(e-mail address removed)"
variety. Not sure how her work computer is networked in her office, i.e. if
they "share" documents located on a central server, or if they just email
them to each other (I can find out).

Does switching between Windows Users require a full reboot, or is it just a
mouse click or two?

I really appreciate your taking the time to advise me on this. Thanks again,

-Gus
 
Wow, many thanks, Brian. I just finished a very long reply to you,
but my Microsoft Passport Access must have timed out and it was eaten
when I tried to send it. Which is just as well, so here's the
condensed version: Do we have to use Outlook for our email, or can
we just fake it so we can keep the contact info and Calendar
functions separate? We used Outlook 6 or 8 years ago briefly for
email and found it to be a huge pain. Also, our longstanding AOL
account has almost all of our email contacts already, we 're just
limited by our phones to synching only with Outlook.

You're certainly welcome to use Outlook for holding the Calendar information
and Outlook Express (there is no such thing as Outlook 6) for mail, which
employs the Windows Address Book for the COntacts.
Does switching between Windows Users require a full reboot, or is it
just a mouse click or two?

For Windows XP, it can be as simple as Start>Log Off>Switch User. For
Windows 2000, You do have to log one user off before you can log the other
in. The same is true for Windows 98. In no case do you have to reboot.
 
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