RE: Aaarggh! Cache mode problems again!

From: Lee Li [MSFT] (v-leeli_at_online.microsoft.com)
Date: 10/21/04 

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 03:07:09 GMT

Dear Jim,

Thank you for posting here. Thanks Ben for sharing experience.

>From your post, my understanding on this issue is: In Outlook 2003 Cached
Mode, the new Global Address Book information is not shown immediately. If
I'm off base, please feel free to let me know.

I completely agree with Ben. The behavior is caused by the Cached mode
which is the new feature in Outlook 2003. When you are running in cached
mode, your Exchange mailbox is synchronized to a local file (an .ost file),
and the offline address list from your Exchange computer is synchronized to
a collection of files (.oab files) on your client computer. Outlook
directly accesses the .ost file and the .oab files on your hard disk
instead of communicating directly with your server or servers.

By default, Outlook 2003 in cached mode automatically updates the Offline
Address Book on the client every 24 hours. The 24-hour time period is
measured from the time that the Offline Address Book was last downloaded
successfully. Even though you manually downloading the Offline Address Book
by clicking send/receive button in Outlook 2003, it will not download the
latest update in GAB because the file Changes.oab which records the change
in GAB has not been updated. In the situation, we need to rebuild Offline
Address Book first as I listed in Suggestion 2. Then we can manually
download the latest OAB again.

For more information about Outlook Offline Address Book, please refer to
the following article.

Administering the Offline Address Book in Outlook 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;841273

Fortunately, I would like to provide the following two suggestions to
implement the update immediately. Suggestion 1 is preferred one for your
situation.

Suggestion 1
==========
We can modify the registry to forced Outlook to use GAL instead of using
Offline Address Book, which will make your Outlook 2003 able to update the
address book immediately.

Note: In this configuration, you will be unable to use Address Book if you
are working offline. However, it is a recommended configuration if the
Outlook and the Exchange server are located in the same subnet.

1. On the client machine, click Start, click Run, type regedit in the open
box and press Enter.
2. Create a new key if it does not exist:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Cached Mode
Parameter: DownloadOAB
Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 0x00000000

- This value forces all directory requests to access the online Active
Directory Global Address List.

3. Quit Registry
4. Perform a search for the .OAB files and delete them.
5. Restart Outlook.

Note: If Offline Address Book files have been already downloaded and
associated with your MAPI profile, this setting will not have the correct
effect. To use Cached Exchange Mode with a full online Active Directory,
you must set this parameter and remove any .oab files from the local
computer.

Suggestion 2
==========
We can rebuild Offline Address Book and force the Outlook to perform a
complete download of whole Address book. To do so, please follow the steps
below.

Rebuild Offline Address Book
---------------------------
1. Open Exchange System Manager
2. Navigate to <Organization name>\Recipients\Offline Address book lists\
3. Right click on the default offline address list and select Rebuild.

Download Address book
------------------------
1. Open Outlook 2003.
2. Click Tools menu, point to Send/Receive and click Download Address BookĄ­
3. Clear Download Changes since last Send/Receive checkbox.
4. Select Full Details.
5. Choose \Global Address List and click OK.

Hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other concerns or
questions. Thanks and have a nice day!

Thanks & Regards,

Lee Li
Microsoft Online Partner Support

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

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