Outlook on Vista

Naturally, Outlook 2007, the newest version of Outlook, works well on Vista. (It also works great on Windows XP.) Outlook 2003 works well on Vista as well. Both of these versions are officially supported on Vista, so if any issues arise Microsoft will offer public hotfixes or include the fix in future Service Packs.

Outlook 2002, 2000, 98, and 97 are not supported on Vista. If you choose to install any of these applications you should expect errors and annoyances. The better known problems are listed below but there may be others I'm not aware of. These versions of Outlook are all long out of support and Microsoft will not release patches to fix any problems with these versions. Upgrading is highly recommended, or use the new Vista calendar and mail applications if you are unwilling or unable to upgrade.

Outlook 2002: It runs, but email account passwords are not saved. After you enter the password during the first email check, Outlook will remember it until you close down Outlook. This is because Outlook used the protected storage interfaces to store passwords and these are no longer supported in Vista. Unless Microsoft decides to create a publicly available hotfix to address this, you won't be able to save passwords. Outlook 2002 is outside of mainstream support so this is unlikely to happen as it's not a critical security hole.

You can use a Windows script program such as AutoIt to enter the password for you.

Note that when you enter the password, the Send and Receive that brought up the password dialog may fail but future send and receives will work. Leave Outlook open 24/7 to avoid entering it frequently.

Recurring calendar items may not open. I cannot reproduce this error on my Vista test system and it may be related to syncing with a PDA. Try a new profile and new PST. If this does not fix it, upgrade or use the Vista calendar. (The Vista calendar and mail applications support syncing with PDAs.)

Outlook 2000: Internet Mail Only (IMO) mode will fail due to the missing wab.dll (Windows Address Book). Corporate/Workgroup mode seems to work fine, except the Startup dialog comes up each time you restart Outlook (click Next and work your way through the dialog), but with more extensive use, additional issues may come to light. If you are using Outlook 2000 for email because you need the calendar, it's probably well worth your time to try the Mail and Calendar applications included with Vista. Windows Mail is more secure than Outlook 2000 and includes anti-spam filtering. The Calendar application supports many of the features found in Outlook 2007's calendar, including calendar sharing and publishing. If you are using Outlook for Word's spell check, Windows Live Mail Desktop supports "spell check as you type"

You can try copying the wab.dll to Vista and registering it. While this will end the error, the address book may not function correctly. For more information, see Hack the WAB.

Outlook 98: Like Outlook 2000, IMO mode will not work because of the missing wab.dll. I haven't tested it with Corporate mode yet, but I recommend using Vista's Mail and Calendar programs instead - Outlook 98 is just too insecure.

If you are unfamiliar with the difference between IMO and Corporate modes, see Choosing an Outlook 98 or Outlook 2000 Mode.

Outlook 97: Not yet tested. Because of the lack of features, buggyness and slowness, it's highly recommended you either upgrade or use Vista's Mail and Calendar instead.