Free/Busy

[Jim H.]

How do I set up Outlook to publish my Free/Busy information on my own
computer so that Outlook on other computers in my small office can see my
Free/Busy information (and I can see theirs)? I understand I can do this
locally without the need for Exchange or an outside service.

I see the Publish and Search fields on the Free/Busy Options window but I
don't know how to structure the path to my Free/Busy folder.

Can any one help me with this?

 

[Jim H.]

Perhaps, I should add that every computer in the office has Outlook 2000,
which still has the Internet Free/Busy (IFB) feature (I understand it was
taken out of a later Outlook 2003 Service Release.)

 

[Jim H.]

Here are the latest entries I've tried for publishing and searching in the
Free/Busy folder on my own computer (which acts as the server for Free/Busy
on my home office intranet.)

For publish:
file://\\C:\Documents and Settings\Jim Hopkins\My Documents\Outlook
FreeBusy\jim-hopkins.vfb

For search:
file://\\C:\Documents and Settings\Jim Hopkins\My Documents\Outlook
FreeBusy\%NAME%.vfb

What am I doing wrong?

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP (OneNote)]

Beats me. What version of Outlook are you using? Is you're my "..\My
Documents\Outlook FreeBusy" folder shared? Do you have appropriate
permissions to it from other machines?

Can you open and look at the contents of that folder from Windows
Explorer on one of the other machines?

--
-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
http://www.officeforlawyers.com
Author - The Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft Outlook 2007:
http://tinyurl.com/5m3f5q

 

[Jim H.]

Thanks for responding, Ben.

I'm using Outlook 2000 on all computers and in the "About Microsoft Outlook"
window, it says that they all are "Internet Mail Only" equipped, apparently a
requirement for what I'm trying to do. (I understand that the ability to
publish "internet" free/busy information was removed from a later service
release of Outlook 2003.

Yes, the "..\My Documents\Outlook FreeBusy" folder on my machine is shared,
the My Documents folder and all sub-folders are mapped as networkd drives on
the other machines (as Y, and I can open and look at the contents of the
"Outlook FreeBusy" folder from the other machines?

In fact, the other machines have no problem publishing to the "Outlook
FreeBusy" folder on my machine. Problem is, I can't publish to it from
Outlook on my own machine.