Modifying custom form - reverts to old Outlook XP design

[Guest]

I've tried to put the Country/Region on the main Contact form, for ease of
updating and viewing when in that form.

I've seen this question
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...&p=1&tid=c8b09852-7d4b-45e3-98d4-cd937c23181c
re customising the Contact form. But in my case I want the new form to be
used for all my contacts. I've just upgraded from Office XP so all show using
the new form but individually revert to the 'old' if I edit it's form.

I want to add the Country/Region field to the default form and have it apply
to all contacts, old or new. From what I can achieve at present it means each
entry reverts the layout to the old design, and I'd have to do the same form
edit to each contact to show it.

My questions are -
1. How do I make all contacts use the new form (when in design mode)?
2. How do I update the contact form once, and have all contacts use that
updated design?

Thanks.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

1) Not possible. The new contact form layout in OL2003 and the included picture control are not available to programmers, who will see the older layout when they put an Outlook 2003 contact form into design mode. One workaround is to use an image control, as described at http://www.outlookcode.com/d/formpicture.htm#control .

For other contact form idiosyncracies, see http://www.outlookcode.com/d/contactform.htm

2) You need to change the MessageClass on the existing items to point to your new form's class. See http://www.outlookcode.com/d/newdefaultform.htm#convert for several tools and scripts to accomplish this.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers