Microsoft has released Outlook Configuration Analyzer 2.0, an excellent tool for troubleshooting a host of common Outlook 2007/ 2010 issues.
As before, the program works by scanning your current Outlook setup and looking for known problems (file sizes, DLL versions, missing updates, whatever it might be). But this release adds 75 new rules, helping it to detect more issues than ever before.
New support for automatic updating now sees the program’s rules maintained online. Outlook Configuration Analyzer 2.0 will detect and download new rules as they’re added, so its usefulness should improve over time.
And the package now comes with a couple of command line tools aimed at system administrators. CalCheck examines Outlook Calendars for problems, while OCATcmd.exe can be used within scripts to scan either the local or network computers.
As with the previous version of the program, its results aren’t always a huge surprise. On our test system, for instance, the Configuration Analyzer just reported that we were missing a few updates, and had some “orphaned files in the Outlook Secure Temp” folder.
If your Outlook setup is misbehaving, though, the program could provide useful information. And if nothing else, you will get a very detailed report on its configuration: installed updates, Outlook addons and their load time, Office security policy settings, application events (including recent crashes) and a whole lot more.
On balance, then, the Microsoft Outlook Configuration Analyzer 2.0 makes a welcome addition to every Office owner’s troubleshooting toolkit. Grab a copy and give your system a scan, see what it might uncover.
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