Do you ever wonder how the other half lives? Have you secretly wanted to try Microsoft Outlook 2002 but your mail lives on a Domino server? Well wonder no more. You can now easily access your Domino mail database from Microsoft Outlook by simply downloading and installing a free connector from Microsoft (yes, I said Microsoft) called the Microsoft Outlook 2002 Connector.

I wrote about the Microsoft Outlook 2002 Connector shortly after it was released late last year, but it wasn't until recently that I started using it on a daily basis. It was part of an effort on my part to have all of my email accounts in one easily accessible location. While I do like Notes, using multiple email accounts with it is not one of its strong suits. Aside from the difficulty of having to set up and switch location documents, I've had difficulty using my POP3 account with Notes. Also, there's not an option to connect to an HTML mail server like Hotmail.

Here are two links to get you started with the Microsoft Outlook 2002 Connector. Download the Microsoft Outlook 2002 Connector at http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2002/olconn.aspx.

For the article "Deploying Microsoft Outlook 2002 Connector," visit http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/xp/journ/outxpcon.htm.

I was surprised at how easy it was to install and use the Microsoft Outlook 2002 Connector. However, one thing that was a little bit of a pain and continues to be an annoyance, is how it works with Notes location documents. Admittedly, this is a "feature" of Notes and not a flaw with the Connector, but it can cause problems. First of all, you should have Notes installed and properly configured to access your mail file on the Domino server before you install the connector. Also, you need to make sure that Notes is set up to use the proper location document which points to the mail file you want to use. This is where I ran into difficulty, since I use several location document configurations to access different Domino domains.

The first thing you need to do after installing the Connector is to create an email account in Outlook as usual by going to Tools-->Email Accounts and then choosing the "Add a new email account" option. Select "Additional Server Types" and then follow the instructions to activate the Connector. Note that before doing this, as mentioned above, you need to make sure your Notes client is pointing to the correct location document. Also, you'll need to make sure Notes is pointing to the correct location document every time you start Outlook 2002 and start the Connector. Otherwise you'll get an error, and it won't connect to your Domino mail server correctly.