Subfolders of Inbox are 2nd class citizens!

[Smogo]

In Outlook 2003, New Mail Notification only works properly for messages
coming into Inbox, and not for mail which is filtered by rules into
subfolders of Inbox. I can set up a rule to display the (annoying)
semi-transparent Desktop Alert whenever new mail arrives, whatever folder
it's filtered into, but I can't figure out how to make the envelope icon
appear in the system tray unless the new mail stays in the main Inbox. The
same applies for the New Mail sound, which only plays when a message comes
into Inbox and isn't filtered elsewhere.

I use a lot of rules, filtering my mail into a lot of subfolders, depending
on who the mail has been sent from, or which mailing list it's been sent to.
The result of this is that the only time I'm actually notified of new mail
arriving is when it's one of the few spam mails that hasn't been caught by
Outlook 2003's (excellent) Junk E-mail filter.

Why would Microsoft decide to downgrade the importance of subfolders in this
way? Is this something we're likely to see a fix for in the next Office
Service Release, or will we have to wait for Outlook 2005 (or whatever)?

 

[Jerry W]

I use filtering in Outlook 2002 (SP2) to move incoming
email from my Inbox to 3 different subfolders within the
Inbox, and the envelope icon AND the New Mail sound both
work just fine when a message comes in and is moved via a
rule to one of the subfolders. The number of messages
also appears on Outlook Today (I have those folders
listed there). I just tested it to make sure, and it
works even when there's just a message that went into a
subfolder and none in the main Inbox folder.

Perhaps Microsoft took this away in Outlook 2003?

Jerry W