Takeaway: If you can’t do something in Outlook, chances are there’s an add-in that can. Susan Harkins lists some handy add-ins that close a few feature gaps.

1: RecoverMyEmail

RecoverMyEmail can repair a broken PST (and DBX) file and recover emails. Figure A shows the add-in at work; the process can take a while. This add-in can also undelete email after you’ve emptied your Deleted Items folder. It’s easy to implement and use. Unfortunately, it won’t recover or undelete anything but email items. You’ll have to look elsewhere for help recovering contacts and calendar items.

Click Open Email File to start the recovery process.

2: E-mail Follow-up

Outlook lets you assign a reminder when you send email and then adds the reminder to your To-do list. If you need more (like me), try E-mail Follow-up. This add-in lets you set a response time when you send an email, as shown in Figure B. If the recipient doesn’t respond within the allotted time, the add-in will remind you that you’re still waiting on a response.

Set a response time and let E-mail Follow-up do the remembering for you.

• Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, and 7
• Outlook 2000, XP, 2003, 2007, and 2010
• $24 (single user) up to $1200 (for 100 users)
• Free trial

3: Lookeen

Despite improvements in Outlook’s search features, many users are still turning to Lookeen. It quickly finds Outlook items, email, contacts, appointments, and so on, that contain your search string. Even attachments are searched. Results are easy to work with and provide an additional management tool for previewing, moving, and deleting.

Type in the search string and Lookeen finds every item that contains that string.

• Windows XP, Vista, and 7
• Outlook 2003, 2007, and 2010
• $39.80 (single user) with volume discount
• Free trial

4: Xobni

It happens to all of us: I know John changed the meeting time after Mary said she couldn’t make it… but you can’t find the message with the new time. And when you finally find it, you realize that John’s assistant, and not John, responded with the new time. Xobni works alongside your mail window to display recent conversations, exchanged files (Figure D), and related emails from people in the copy line. You can also view statistics and graphs that will tell you about your email habits.

View people and attached files related to a specific email.

• Windows XP, Vista, and 7
• Outlook 2003, 2007, and 2010
• $7.99 a month
• Free trial

5: SimplyFile

Despite my best efforts, my Inbox stays crowded. I can drag messages to categorized folders, but I have many folders and I’m good at dropping messages into the wrong folder. SimplyFile does what Outlook does, but a bit more efficiently. After a little training (SimplyFile, not you), a single click to the SimplyFile group, shown in Figure E, will move messages. As you use this add-in, its ability to choose the right folder improves. (This add-in doesn’t support Google Docs and has known issues with Gmail.)

With SimplyFile, filing is a single click away.

• Windows XP, Vista, and 7
• Outlook 2003, 2007, and 2010
• $49.95
• Free trial

6: Email Scheduler

Outlook offers a bare-bones scheduling feature. You specify a day and time, and Outlook won’t send the message before the allotted time. If you’re scheduling messages frequently, you’ll probably want more options. Email Scheduler fully automates scheduling delayed messages and sending messages. You can attach files and even whole folders. Although this is a handy add-in, be sure to check its restrictions before purchasing — it doesn’t work with Outlook Express or Exchange Client.

• Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, and 7
• Outlook 2000, XP, 2003, and 2007
• $24 (single user) up to $1200 (100 users)
• Free trial

7: Sent Item Organizer

Occasionally, I run into an add-in that doesn’t add functionality, it just lets me do what I want to do more efficiently. Sent Item Organizer lets your organize your sent messages by filing them in specific folders. This add-in is more flexible than Outlook’s built-in rules. You can use keywords or email addresses to trigger the move. This add-in is also good for users who need more control but are unfamiliar with Outlook features.

• Windows XP, Vista, and 7
• Outlook 2000, XP, 2003, 2007, and 2010
• $29.95
• Free trial

8: Easy2Add

The coolest stuff comes sometimes comes in the smallest package. Easy2Add displays a small icon in your task tray. When you want to add a new item to Outlook, click the icon and enter the item. That’s all you see, but behind the scenes, it creates a new item in Outlook even if Outlook is closed. Want to add a quick lunch meeting? You don’t have to launch Outlook and wait for all those add-ins to load — just use Easy2Add, enter the details (Figure F), and you’re done. You’ll have to follow a few rules about the text you enter, but they’re simple. (Note: The documentation doesn’t list Outlook 2010, but so far, so good; just keep that in mind if you use it with 2010.)

Enter item details without launching Outlook.

• Windows XP and Vista
• Outlook 2002, 2003, and 2007
• Free

9: PocketKnife Peek

PocketKnife Peek lets you view HTML messages in plain text without the potential danger of executing a malicious script. After installing this add-in, you’ll find a Peek button on the standard toolbar in Outlook 2000 through 2007. In Outlook 2010, it’s on the Add-In tab. Select the email item and click Peek. Figure G shows an issue of the Office For Mere Mortals newsletter in plain text. (No, I wasn’t really worried about the newsletter. OfMM has been around for ages and is clean and informative!

Click the tabs to view an HTML email in plain text.

• Windows XP, Vista, and 7
• Outlook 2000, XP, 2003, 2007, and 2010
• Free

10: SMS

Microsoft’s SMS add-in lets you send SMS text messages through most mobile phones. In addition, you can save a draft, send to groups, print the SMS, and forward a message as SMS or email. You can lookup contacts and use Spellcheck. Connect your mobile phone via Infrared, Bluetooth, or even a USB cable and you’re ready to go.

• Windows Server 2003, XP, Vista
• Outlook 2003 and 2007
• Free

Takeaway: If you want people to pay more attention to your email, perhaps you should pay more attention to your email!

We want recipients of our email to treat our message seriously, yet we often give little thought to the message we send, because it’s quick and easy, at least from a technical perspective. It’s up to us to apply common sense and good taste to the messages we send. Here are a few guidelines you might find helpful, whether you’re using Outlook, Outlook Express, or a web client:

• Keep it brief: I never make it through a long email. I find myself scanning, and I miss important details. You’re not writing a book or a love letter, you’re sharing information. Share the information and move on. If you write more than two or three paragraphs, a face-to-face meeting or conference call might be better.
• Include a succinct subject: Long subject lines are as bad as no subject at all. Pinpoint a few keywords that convey the email’s purpose.
• Check your spelling and grammar: Your email client has tools for checking your spelling and grammar so use them. Many people are sensitive to misspelled words and poor grammar. They see it as a lack of concern. If you don’t care, why should they?
• Don’t use emoticons and acronyms: Emoticons and acronyms are fine for personal email, but don’t use them in your professional correspondence.
• Don’t use ALL CAPS: ALL CAPS is the email equivalent of angry shouting. You wouldn’t use ALL CAPS in a professional letter, so don’t use them in email.
• Limit copies: Only copy those who absolutely need to be in the loop. Otherwise, colleagues will start ignoring your email.
• Greet your recipients: Use a short greeting to acknowledge your reader; include their name if you can.
• Include a closing: Let the reader know you’re done by including a complimentary closing and signature.
• Retain the thread: When responding to an email, include previous messages and add your response to the top. That way, the recipient is privy to all the information that you already have.

In short, show some courtesy and don’t take your reader for granted.

By Woody Leonhard

With Windows 7 Service Pack 1 generally available, Win7 users need to know what SP1 brings — and doesn't bring — to the game.

In short, this service pack adds surprisingly little to Windows 7. You'll want to install it — eventually.

And for those of you who followed the conventional wisdom and are waiting for the first service pack before installing Microsoft's newest OS, you waited without good cause. Win 7 SP1 sports a little nip here and a roll-up tuck there — but there's not a single significant enhancement to Win7.

And that's good news. It seems, for once, Microsoft turned out a major new product that was relatively problem-free, right from the start.

Service Pack 1's most significant improvements

Uh, there really aren't any. At least not for the average PC user. (SP1 does have a few nifty new features for Windows Server 2008 R2.) No need to take my word for it. Download Microsoft's official description, "Notable changes in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1," available on a Microsoft Download Center page, and see for yourself. "The impact of SP1 on the Windows 7 client operating system is considered to be minimal. Included changes address minor usability issues in specific scenarios," according to the unusually sedate Microsoft manifesto.

To save you a bit of time and effort, here's a summary:§  Higher-definition connections with Remote Desktop: If you use Remote Desktop (I prefer the third-party service LogMeIn), installing SP1 on both PCs sets up high-definition connection via a new technology Microsoft calls RemoteFX. Snappy name. Based on virtualization technology (info page) Microsoft acquired two years ago when it bought Calista Technologies, RemoteFX makes it possible for full graphics to show through on remote sessions. Someday, we're promised, you'll be able to use RemoteFX with your phone. I'm not holding my breath — I'm not even sure I'd want it.§  More Windows Live ID support: A technology Microsoft calls "Microsoft Federation Gateway" will give SP1-enhanced PCs improved Windows Live ID authentication to non-Microsoft sites, using a long-established Web services protocol known as the WS-Federation Passive Requestor Profile. I thought Win7 already had WS-Federation profiles (detailed in an MSDN article) nailed, but apparently some fix is necessary.§  An HDMI patch: I have no idea why MS emphasizes this as one of the noteworthy changes in Win7 SP1. It's a bug fix to keep HDMI working when a PC is rebooted.§  An XML Paper Specification fix: The 10 of you who actually use XPS instead of PDF will be pleased that SP1 fixes a print bug affecting mixed portrait and landscape documents.§  Even more-obscure fixes: These include restoring previous folders at sign-in, IKEv2 protocol improvements (used in VPN connections), and a hotfix rollup from November (KB 982018) for Advanced Format disks. Little stuff.This is a case where "SP" stands for "slim pickings."

Odd circumstances leading to SP1's release

If you follow the trade press, you may have picked up on some, uh, anomalous circumstances surrounding the release of SP1. (We'll probably see a similar series of leaks, half-leaks, and teasers leading up to Windows 8 — or whatever the next version of Windows is called.)

It appears that the code for SP1 was frozen as far back as mid-to-late-November. The files are digitally signed 11/22/2010. The official build identification string, 7601.17514.win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850, refers to November 19 ("101119"). The installer executable is dated November 23. That's a long, long time ago.

On October 27, 2010, Microsoft posted update KB 976902, which ended up crashing a significant number of machines. Soon dubbed the "Black Hole Update" by industry observers, the patch was pulled quickly and didn't reappear until January. We now know KB 976902 is a precursor to installing Windows 7 SP1 — and it's automatically installed for you when you install SP1.

As noted in a winrumors.com story, Microsoft updated its Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit (download page) in November. The updated kit lets corporate sites prevent Windows Update from automatically installing SP1. In retrospect, it looks like MS released these tools right around the time SP1 was finalized. That makes sense: the Windows development team needs to have things nearly locked down before ancillary tools can be distributed.

On January 13, Microsoft's Russian Windows Virtualization team posted the Win7 SP1 RTM (release to manufacture) build identification string on its MS TechNet site. Subsequently, the final build number was removed from the site and someone at Microsoft posted a notice stating, "Microsoft has not released SP1 to OEMs at this time, though we are on track for a Q1 release, as we previously announced. The comments made in this blog entry included some inaccuracies." As best I can tell, all of the pertinent details on the Russian TechNet site were correct. Those of you who watched the Windows 7 rollout will remember that Russian-language sites leaked many details about Win7 that were later confirmed. (The Russian sites just might provide accurate prerelease details for Window 8.)

On January 14, a copy of 7601.17514.win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850 hit the torrents, and Microsoft immediately and repeatedly denied that the leaked build was final. On January 14, Paul Thurrott reported, "A bit of rumor-busting. Some sites have claimed that SP1 is complete and that Microsoft will release it to its OEM — i.e., PC-maker — partners as soon as tomorrow. That is not the case. SP1 is imminent, but it's not quite done as I write this." No doubt that's what MS's handlers told Paul, but by all appearances, it wasn't true.

SP1's official announcement came three weeks later in a Feb. 9 Microsoft Windows blog. At that point, MS said that OEMs had already received the bits on February 9, that MSDN and TechNet subscribers would get them on February 16 (they did), and that the rest of us will have SP1 on February 22 via the MS Download Center and Windows Update.

That's an amazingly fast rollout, if indeed MS waited until February 9 for OEMs — blindingly fast if you're selling new PCs and want to ship them with the latest build of Windows 7. Perhaps it was smoke and mirrors; OEMs have often been fingered as the source of torrent-based leaks of new Microsoft software. Maybe the February 9 OEM announcement was simply damage control.

As I noted at the outset, this first service pack says much about Windows 7. It's surprisingly free of the growing pains that afflicted earlier versions of Windows. Unless you are completely attached to Windows XP, the wait to upgrade is over.

By Becky Waring

One of the best ways to increase your computing productivity doesn't cost a cent: learn the keyboard shortcuts for your most-used commands.

To help you stop mousing around and become a keyboard maestro, I rounded up the best resources for finding, using, and creating shortcuts.

Lincoln Spector struck a nerve with his Jan. 13 column, "Twenty-six ways to work faster in Windows 7." Many of those tips involved keyboard shortcuts. After all, almost any time you can use the keyboard instead of the mouse, you work faster. But there are lots more shortcuts where those came from. This article aims to show you where to find the ones that can speed up your workflow. In case you can't find the shortcuts you need, I'll show you how to create your own.

You probably already know that you can invoke many menu and dialog-box items via the keyboard by pressing the Control or Alt key plus an underlined letter. For example, pressing Alt + F in most apps opens the File menu; then pressing the underlined letter N opens a new document. You might also know that when you press Alt + A, you apply dialog-box changes.

Direct keyboard shortcuts to menu commands (such as Ctrl + C for Copy) are typically shown next to the command in the menu itself. For a great introduction to using keyboard shortcuts, check out Gizmo's Dec. 3, 2009, column. For general strategies and more tips, see Scott Dunn's Feb. 25, 2010, column.

But hundreds of keyboard shortcuts for commands in Windows and widely used apps such as Internet Explorer and Office are not explicitly hinted at in menus and dialog boxes. In other words, you need to actually learn them.

I can hear you groaning. Yes, learning a whole bunch of keyboard commands is not my idea of a fun way to spend a weekend, either, but if you judiciously pick a few, list them in a cheat sheet that you stick on your monitor, and practice them for a week or two, they'll become second nature.

Top 20 shortcuts for taming your windows

Managing windows is probably one of the most fertile areas for keyboard shortcuts because otherwise, you manipulate them solely with the mouse. Here's my top-20 list of must-know shortcuts for taming your windows; you'll never have to move your hands from the keyboard. For completeness, I've included many keyboard shortcuts you might already be familiar with; skip down the list to see the ones you don't know.

Note that both Sticky Keys and Mouse Keys display a warning message when you turn them on and off. You can disable the warning boxes in the Control Panel's Ease of Access Center by choosing Set up Mouse Keys or Set up Sticky Keys. This list is just a sample of the dozens of shortcuts available. For a full accounting of Windows 7 interface shortcuts, see Microsoft's Windows 7 Help & How-to site.

Other programs and lots more shortcuts

Although the global Windows 7 shortcuts are the headliners, you will probably save the most time by getting to know the keyboard shortcuts in frequently used applications such as your Web browser, e-mail program, and word processor.

Here are links to handy keyboard shortcut reference guides for many popular apps, along with my favorite shortcut discoveries made researching this article:§  Internet Explorer. (shortcuts) Try Control+Shift+P to open an InPrivate browsing window; try Control + E to go to the Search box.§  Firefox. (shortcuts) Select the exact tab you want with Command + 1 to 8. Command + 9 chooses the last tab.§  Chrome. (shortcuts) Press Alt and click a link to download its target, such as a picture or PDF file.§  Office 2010. (shortcuts) Use the keyboard to work the ribbon interface in all Office programs. This is a huge timesaver. Also, create your own shortcuts by first clicking the File tab to open Backstage view. Then choose Options/Customize Ribbon/Keyboard, then Shortcuts/Customize to enter your own key combinations or to change existing ones, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The keyboard customization tool in Office 2010.§  Word 2010. (shortcuts) Press Shift + F7 to open the Thesaurus. My new favorite function key! Lots of great formatting, selection, and navigation shortcuts here, too.§  Excel 2010. (shortcuts) Control + Shift + : enters the current time. Control + Shift + & adds a border around the selected cells.§  OneNote 2010. (shortcuts) I've fallen in love with the ability to move the current paragraph or selected paragraphs up or down in a document by pressing Alt + Shift + up- or down-arrow.§  Outlook 2010. (shortcuts) Enter Control + Shift + I to switch to your Inbox (or Control + Shift + O to move to your Outbox).§  Thunderbird. (shortcuts) Press F8 to toggle the message pane on and off; press T to jump to the next unread thread.§  Windows Media Player 12. (shortcuts) Alt + Enter toggles full-screen video.§  Adobe Photoshop CS5. (shortcuts) Adobe is kind enough to let you use theirs or build your own shortcuts right in the program.With a little Googling, you can find more lists of shortcuts for most any program you use regularly.

Better than shortcuts: Windows Aero tricks

First introduced in Windows Vista, the Windows Aero interface comes of age in Windows 7 and is part of all editions except Starter and Home Basic. Critically, most Windows 7 PCs actually have the horsepower to run Aero smoothly (many Vista users were chagrined to learn their computer either wouldn't support Aero or ran sluggishly), and new usability features make Aero much more than a pretty face.

You're probably already familiar with many of the Windows 7 interface effects, especially Aero Peek, but others, like Shake, are relatively obscure. If you haven't discovered these tricks, you're really missing out.

Yes, they're mouse shortcuts rather than keyboard shortcuts (and most have keyboard equivalents), but give them a try. Sometimes you have your hand on the mouse or trackpad already, which makes these mouse tricks faster than keyboard combinations to access. And they're much more fun.§  Peek. Hovering over a program icon in the taskbar gives you a thumbnail preview of open windows for that program.§  Shake. Click and hold your main window on the screen, and then "shake" it with your mouse to minimize or restore all other windows. This shortcut lets you focus on the task at hand. It works like the Windows key + Home combination.§  Flip 3D. This trick is way cooler than Alt+Tab: holding down the Windows key while repeatedly pressing Tab visually flips you through your open windows. (See Figure 2.) To flip backward, hold down the Shift key, too.§  Snap. Drag the title bar of a window to the top of the screen to maximize, or drag it to the right or left edge of the screen until an outline of the window appears to make it fill the right or left half of the screen. The latter maneuver makes it a snap to arrange two windows side by side. This is the mouse equivalent of Windows key + left- or right-arrow.
Figure 2. Windows Aero Flip 3D lets you visually sift through open windows.

If Aero effects are not presently working on your Windows 7 installation (or only partially working), you may not have the horsepower to run the full Aero interface. Or you may need to enable Aero effects because they depend on your Windows Experience Index.

To enable Aero (or check your ability to run it), go to Control Panel/System & Security/System and run or refresh the Experience Index. Then choose Advanced system settings/Advanced/Performance settings to see what Aero effects are enabled for your system.

If not all effects are enabled, click Custom and check the additional effects you want to use. If these effects perform poorly, you can always go to the same settings to disable them.

How to play God and create program shortcuts

If you spend any time following Windows news, you've probably read one or more of the recent stories on the Web about the so-called GodMode, the Windows 7 tweak du jour. This is nothing more than a searchable/clickable list (see Figure 3) of all system and Control Panel tasks, produced when you create a special folder. (Ed Bott describes similar shortcuts in one of his blogs.)

GodMode has no extra powers or capabilities. But it does let you easily assign keyboard shortcuts to any task in the list, which is undeniably cool.

Figure 3. The God Mode folder contains a searchable list of system tasks.

So you could create keyboard commands for tasks such as adjusting your monitor resolution, showing hidden files and folders, blocking or allowing Internet Explorer pop-ups, or viewing network connections.

To do so, simply create a folder on your desktop with a name and a globally unique identifier (GUID) number, such as GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}. (Warning: Creating a God Mode folder reportedly crashes 64-bit Vista systems. Use at your own risk in any OS but Windows 7.)

Next, open the folder and right-click the setting for which you want to make a shortcut. Finally, right-click the newly created shortcut, choose Properties/Shortcut, and enter your choice of key sequences to invoke it. Press Apply and close the dialog box.

When you create your own sequences, try to stay away from anything already used by Windows or by your main programs. The Control + Shift + Function key territory is relatively uncharted.

Note that you can use this last trick to create keyboard shortcuts for any programs or documents you use frequently, not just the GodMode tasks. Simply right-click the program name in the Start menu and choose Properties/Shortcut/Shortcut key. Do the same for documents by first creating a clickable shortcut and then a keyboard shortcut.

Using KeyText and AutoHotKey for shortcuts

Want even more shortcuts? Start rolling your own with a keyboard macro utility. These apps let you create standard shortcuts not only for menu items but also for sequences of actions, including tasks such as entering text and clicking buttons in a dialog box.

Macro utilities for Windows 7 are not as plentiful as they used to be for XP. (And my all-time favorite, QuicKeys, has not been updated for Vista or Windows 7.) But I found a couple that do the job for little or no money.

The first is MJMSoft's KeyText 3 (U.S. $29.95, info page). KeyText (see Figure 4) is an amazingly versatile program that can automate tasks such as opening your e-mail program and creating a new message using an e-mail address you've selected in another program.

It even supports regular expressions and if/then/else logic, so you can conduct search-and-replace operations or batch-file renaming, as well as perform different actions that depend on the result of a search.

Figure 4. KeyText 3's macro menu can be invoked from the system tray or via a hotkey. You can also assign direct hotkeys to any item.

Learning how to harness all this power requires a little work, but you can use both the contextual help and a very good PDF manual (albeit one not updated since Vista). You'll have no trouble learning simple tasks such as assigning trigger text to an action. A trial version of this software is available.

AutoHotKey (info page) is another versatile option for creating your own shortcuts. This free and open-source utility requires significantly more effort to learn and use than KeyText, but it has a very active community forum where you can get help quickly; it also has good documentation.

AutoHotKey is basically a macro scripting language that requires you to write simple programs for your shortcuts using a text editor like NotePad. After saving your shortcuts with the .ahk extension, you can then run them in the background by double-clicking them, or you can set them as startup items.

AutoHotKey's command list (page) is quite versatile, and programmers are likely take to it in a flash. The rest of us can get by with the included AutoScriptWriter macro recording utility, which — as advertised — "watches where you type and what you click, and keeps track of which window is active."

KeyText is considerably easier to use than AutoHotKey, and both powerfully fulfill almost every Windows 7 automation need. Even so, there's room for a simpler utility with a great graphical user interface, such as the old QuicKeys. If you know of one, please tell us in the Lounge. In the meantime, try out some of the preprogrammed suggestions above.