There is tremendous value in using a system that is not bound to Outlook such as Outlook's Desktop Alert.


Besides the fact that Outlook may not be used within your organization, the article below illustrates why using an autonomous alert platform (i.e.  Not woven into Microsoft proprietary applications) is a much more reliable solution for enterprise.

Meeting Forward Notification Kills Outlook

A new feature in Exchange 2007 will deliver a notification to the meeting organizer when the meeting is forwarded by an attendee to someone else.  Nice feature unless you're the organizer and you're still running Outlook 2003.  Then it's not so nice. 

See when Outlook 2003 tries to render the New Mail Desktop Alert for the Meeting Forward Notification message, Outlook will crash.

This is a known issue that is fixed in Office 2003 SP3, but for those of you slower moving enterprises I offer these workarounds...

  1. Disable the New Mail Desktop Alert by clicking Tools in the menu bar and selecting Options.  On the Preferences tab click the Email Options button, click the Advanced E-mail Options button, and uncheck the box next to Display a New Mail Desktop Alert.
  2. Install Office 2003 SP3.
  3. Setup a content filter in your Exchange antivirus application that will filter messages with the specific content of the Meeting Forward Notification message before they reach the organizer's mailbox.