Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Changing Microsoft Outlook 2003's default viewing behaviour is difficult. There are a couple of possibilities, but so far nothing that really works.
How can I get Outlook 2003 to default the reading pane off, and to stop grouping?
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I've actually been fairly pleased with Outlook 2003 unlike some. That's not to say it doesn't bring some annoyances. One of them is that it insists on defaulting to listing messages in groups and on showing the "reading pane".
Unfortunately the annoyance grows.
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Naturally, in any folder it's quite possible to turn off grouping (View, Arrange By, and then uncheck Show In Groups). And it's possible to turn off the reading pane (View, Reading Pane, Off).
The problem is that to date I've found no way to make those settings either globally or the default. The result? I must to take those steps in each and every folder I want to change. I have more folders than patience so as you might expect I now have a fairly random mixture where the most used folders have those options turned off and the rest don't.
And for what it's worth, here's a quote from the Microsoft web site:
... changes to the Reading Pane cannot be made globally and must be made to each folder individually.
It is possible to start Outlook with the reading pane turned off. Add "/safe:1" to the outlook command line will start it in a "Safe Mode" and the reading pane will be disabled. I'll admit that this makes me nervous as I'm not sure what the other side effects of this "Safe Mode" might be.
If YOU find a way to default either of these settings to off I'd love to hear it. Add your suggestion to the comments and I'll check it out. If it works I'll update this article accordingly.
Article C1866 - December 1, 2003
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
Hi folks!
The command
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\OUTLOOK.EXE" /recycle /nopreview
does not work correctly on my system.
The preview pane is turned off, but the button to activate it is still available.
I want to remove this button, so that no user can re-activate the preview-pane again.
What do I have to do?
I'm using WinXP SP2 plus Outloo2003.
Kind regards
Posted by: mottokia@hotmail.com at May 16, 2008 1:23 AMIt's work in my Microsoft Outlook when added command line "/safe:1"
Posted by: Kit at March 7, 2009 8:24 AMMany thanks for the help!!
in outlook click on view tab then reading pane then select off - hope this helps :-)
Posted by: george georgiou at December 2, 2009 4:39 PMTo change the reading pane globally, you can modify (using define view- other settings) the default message folder and select "reading pane off"- then any folder using that view will default to no reading pane.
Posted by: kvd at January 20, 2010 8:01 PMClaimed fix at http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-777372.php
Posted by: Monelle Richmond at March 6, 2010 6:33 AM