Outlook 2003 Custom Forms/Custom Actions

[Duncan McCreadie]

I have some custom forms with custom actions that run fine in Ol2000 and
2002 but not so in 2003. I get error messages saying that "could not
install the custom actions". However, it is not consistent across all
instances.

I have tried flushing the forms cache which has a temporary effect on some
errors (like where it loses the custom form altogether) but nothing seems to
fix this one.

Any ideas? I am running stand-alone not in an Exchange type environment.

Thanks

Duncan

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP]]

You're not alone. I've seen several custom action issues, but none
unfortunately that I can reproduce. If you can narrow down the cause, then
we're halfway toward getting it fixed.

 

[Duncan McCreadie]

Thanks for the feedback.

I have "fixed" my problem (I think).

There are three types of contact form that I use that are interlinked for
various reasons. The problem was only consistently apparent in one type of
form - so I looked in detail at the custom actions on this form. One of the
custom actions created a form type that no longer existed! (It had been
renamed). As the other forms sometimes reference this record they were
triggering the error in their scripts so it looked like they were failing as
well. Sorting the custom action out so it was correct and all has gone
away.

I had a similar issue when transferring my forms into 2002 from 2000 as it
was much less forgiving of errors in things like the Outlook View Control.
Seems like each new version tightens up its requirements (no bad thing)
Mind you there is also a "bug" in 2002 that still seems apparent in 2003 wrt
formatting views - it seems impossible to use the MessageClass to trigger
formatting in 2002/2003 whereas it works beautifully in 2000. I don't think
that can be seen as tightening things up - do you?

So now I am only left with my mysterious ActiveX control problem (see other
posting in this newsgroup).

Duncan

 

[Duncan McCreadie]

A bit of clarity on the custom action problem now....

I checked the other forms and they also had a naming error but did not give
rise to the problem! It is the descriptive name rather than the
messageclass that was wrong in each case.

For now it works even if I can't prove why!

Duncan