crankygeek

Since it seems to work for Chris and Nick, I thought I’d throw a bug into the blog arena regarding Outlook 2003.

Sometimes I’ve opened a message in a separate window and left it open for awhile, hidden away behind the things I’m actively working on. Later on, as I’m working through my Inbox, I’ll see the item that I’ve read (which I’ve forgotten is still open) and delete it.

Later on, that email window will finally make its way to the surface. Realizing I don’t need to keep it anymore, but forgetting that I already deleted it from my Inbox, I click on the delete button in the toolbar. But because the original message is gone, instead of that window closing up and going away, I get prompted with the following:

“The item could not be moved. It was already moved or deleted or access was denied.”

Followed by just an “OK” button.

This is very irritating, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Chris has already mentioned it himself.

When I click delete, I think the window should just go away. The fact that Outlook is throwing three very different reasons as to why I can’t delete from the open window seems pretty lazy (and yes, I know I’m not a programmer so that’s a typical Monday-morning-quarterback answer, but bear with me). That thing about “access was denied” especially so. I find it hard to believe that there isn’t some type of return code when access is denied. In that case, let me know I can’t do anything with the message. I’m fine with that.

But if the message has been moved or already deleted, then the bottom line is that the link between my open window and Outlook’s message store is gone. There’s probably some high-falutin’ GUI design principle that dictates why the window shouldn’t be closed without some type of user feedback, but I don’t care. Make it go away or at least make that dialog optional.

Who knows, maybe this is already changed in OL2007? But I’m not in any rush to run the Office beta, so I couldn’t tell you.