Office XP Professional

Outlook continues to lead the way in terms of functionality. The Exchange and Internet mail options have been consolidated, resulting in far easier configuration. Options such as only downloading the message header when over a certain size have been a while in coming, but are finally here, along with group scheduling - making it far easier to organise those meetings!

The search facility for your vast, unorganised collection of emails have been improved performance wise. Other new features include free/busy information for sharing of schedules, integration with MSN messenger (presumably in anticipation of even tighter integration with Windows XP). You can finally set the order that your emails are checked, and also allows email to be checked before being sent solving authentication problems with a number of servers.

The only downside to Outlook 2002 is the increased security that was introduced with Outlook 2000 SP2. There are 2 attachment levels; Level 1 and Level 2. Files with a Level 1 extension cannot be opened at all, nor can they be removed from this list through Outlook. Outlook automatically blocks all files with .exe (Application), .bas (VB module), .mdb (Access database), .msi (Windows Installer) and numerous other extensions. With Level 2 attachments, Outlook will force you to save them to disk first, and open them later. Unless you are using Microsoft Exchange Server, you have very little configuration options, however, you are able to tone down the Level 1 restrictions. To do this, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook Security using Regedit. Next, add a string value called Level1Remove. The value of this key should be set to a list of extensions separated by semicolons. For example, to demote the .mdb and .url extensions to Level 2 security, add 'mdb;url' to this key.