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Feeling Conflicted?

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This is from the "Not Everything I Know is Dev"-file. I'll put a developer spin on it though. We get customers who modify messages from the client side. Usually, they're tagging something on the message to indicate it's been processed. Sometimes, especially with Cached mode, they see the messages they're modifying show up in the Sync Issues folders. This happens when the message was also changed on the server side (or another client) and Outlook couldn't completely resolve the conflict itself.

So - ever wanna see how Outlook decides which item wins? This article describes the process, but if you want more, you can always turn on logging. In Outlook 2003, you have to do the following:

  1. On the Tools menu click Options
  2. On the Other tab click Advanced Options
  3. Enable the "Enable logging (troubleshooting)" check box and click OK until you're out
  4. Exit and restart Outlook

This will tell Outlook to place logging for conflict resolution in the Sync Issues folder. However, it also turns on all of the logging the Outlook client has, which can have a bit of a perf hit.

For Outlook 2007, we added a new reg key. You can do the same steps as above, or you can set this key:

Key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER SoftwareMicrosoftOffice12.0OutlookOptions

DWORD:

EnableConflictLogging

Value:

 1

This will get you your conflict logging without turning on all the other logging. So now, if you're trying to chase a conflict that only happens occasionally, you can do so without bogging down your machine with Outlook's full logging!