Gordon already provided the same tip by having the user go to their
security options. It was a hint sufficient enough for anyone other
than for a super lazy user who can't even bother to notice and read
the options presented on that tab panel.
I understand the confusion when users post questions about Outlook
Express in an Outlook newsgroup. But they should still get pushed to
the appropriate newsgroup. Word and WordPerfect are not the same
product just because they share a root word. Word and Wordpad are not
the same product or even siblings of each other, nor are Outlook and
Outlook Express, simply because they share a root word and are
produced by the same developer. Newbies aren't as savvy but they
should NOT get reinforced to ask questions in the wrong newsgroup.
Telling them that Outlook is a component of Office and that Outlook
Express is a component of Internet Explorer reinforces the
difference, and telling them this isn't the appropriate newsgroups
also reinforces the difference.
If they don't mention doing some searching of the newsgroups, checking
http://support.microsoft.com, looking in the program's own help, or
some other self-help before posting, it's likely that they didn't even
bother. I was a newbie, too, so pushing me to the correct newsgroup
or to a support site does help because I then know where to look on a
subsequent problem. Volunteers are more apt to volunteer if they know
the poster has at least *tried* some self-help first. Doing the
search and posting the link from Microsoft's own KB web site can get
quite boring after awhile for the same repeated questions. Rather
than just giving them the link at Microsoft's support site, I'll give
a short list of steps to perform the same search and hopefully the
user learns that they, too, can perform the same search themself.
And pointing them elsewhere that is more appropriate is not itself
inappropriate.
