If you are upgrading to Office Outlook 2007 from an earlier version of Outlook, consider whether you will migrate previous settings, modify user profiles, and use new customization options. The Office Customization Tool (OCT) provides options for migrating users' current settings and for making other customizations, such as defining new Microsoft Exchange servers and customizing new features. User settings are migrated automatically by default, except for security settings.

If you are deploying Outlook on client computers for the first time, each user needs an Outlook profile to store information about e-mail messaging server connections and other important Outlook settings. You use the Office Customization Tool or deploy an Outlook Profile (PRF) file to define profile settings for your users.

If your organization uses a different mail client, you might need to migrate data from those clients to Office Outlook 2007. Importers provided in Outlook (for example, for Eudora Light) might be helpful. Importers cannot be configured to run automatically; you use them to migrate data individually for each user.

Special customizations are required to deploy Outlook to remote users and roaming users, and to set up Outlook for multiple users on the same computer.

You might want to configure features such as Outlook Anywhere (RPC over HTTP) and Cached Exchange Mode for remote users. These features enhance the user experience when Outlook is used over slower or less reliable connections. With Outlook Anywhere, you can configure connections that enable users to connect more securely from the Internet (HTTP) to Exchange servers in your organization without using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection. Cached Exchange Mode is an Outlook feature that uses a local copy of users' mailboxes. This feature enables users to have more reliable access to their Outlook data, whether they are connected to a network or they are working offline.

Roaming users should have the same messaging environment on each computer to which they roam. This includes the type and version of the operating system, Outlook version, and Outlook installation location on the computer.

For multiple users sharing the same computer, use Microsoft Windows logon features on the computer's operating system to manage user logon verification. Make sure that each user runs the same version of Outlook so that conflicts do not arise among shared files. Conflicts can occur when one version of Outlook attempts to write a file to a file folder location that is shared by other versions of Outlook used on the same computer. To learn more about setting up multiple Outlook users on the same computer, see the Outlook Help topic Using Outlook on a computer you share with other people.

The 2007 Microsoft Office system provides broad support for deploying in international or multilingual environments. An 2007 Office system product consists of the language-neutral core package plus one or more language-specific packages. In addition to the Proofing Tools included in each language version, you can download and deploy Proofing Tools for other languages to help multilingual groups work with and edit files in a variety of languages.

Office Outlook 2007 supports Unicode throughout the product to help multilingual organizations seamlessly exchange messages and other information in a multilingual environment.

Some features of Office Outlook 2007 (for example, Cached Exchange Mode) require Microsoft Exchange Server as a messaging platform. While Office Outlook 2007 works well with earlier versions of Exchange, some features of Office Outlook 2007 require specific versions of Exchange. Because of this and other enhanced integration with Exchange throughout Office Outlook 2007, you might gain the greatest benefit by combining Office Outlook 2007 with the latest version of Exchange.

Deployment customization decisions for Office Outlook 2007 depend on which version of Exchange Server you are using. If you currently use Exchange Server as your messaging server and you have not upgraded to Exchange 2003 or later, consider coordinating your Exchange Server upgrade with your deployment timing for Office Outlook 2007. Exchange Server 2000 is the minimum version for using Exchange Server with Office Outlook 2007.

You can customize your Outlook installation to handle Outlook user settings and profiles in two ways. You can:

• Specify Outlook user settings in the Office Customization Tool (OCT).

• Specify options for managing new and existing Outlook profiles in the OCT or use an Outlook Profile (PRF) file.

For example, you can enable Outlook users to migrate their current profiles and settings while default profiles and settings are defined for new Outlook users. You can also modify existing profiles and establish new default profiles for new Outlook users.

When you customize Outlook by using the OCT, you save your choices and other installation preferences in the customization file that is applied during Setup. Later, you update settings and profile information by opening the file in the OCT and saving a new copy of the file.

Office Outlook 2007 includes new features so you can easily subscribe to new sources of content and share the features with users inside and outside your organization. Content sources include Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) contacts, tasks, and calendars, along with local and Internet-based calendars (iCals).

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is another sharing feature that enables users to subscribe to internal or Internet-based sources of syndicated content (XML files) to avoid having to check a site for new information. You can deploy specific RSS Feeds or calendar subscriptions to users, configure settings to manage how users can share these subscriptions or content, specify how often the servers update users' copies of the data, and more.

Microsoft Terminal Services enables you to install a single copy of Office Outlook 2007 on a Terminal Services computer. Instead of running Outlook locally, multiple users connect to the server and run Outlook from that server.

To achieve the optimal results when you use Outlook with Terminal Services, pay close attention to how you customize your Outlook configuration. For example, Cached Exchange Mode cannot be configured with Terminal Services. Note that Outlook might be part of an environment that includes other applications provided on the same Terminal Services computer.

Collaboration Data Objects (CDO) must be downloaded and then installed locally. You can download CDO at Collaboration Data Objects version 1.2.1.

The new Trust Center for the 2007 Office system provides a central location for security and privacy options. The Very High, High, Medium, and Low security levels that were used in earlier versions of Office are replaced with a more streamlined security system.

For more information, see Overview of security in the 2007 Office system.

Office Outlook 2007 includes features designed to help minimize the spread of viruses and to help users avoid junk e-mail.

In Office Outlook 2007, you can configure virus-prevention and other security settings in Group Policy to support the needs of your organization. You can also use the Outlook Security Template to configure settings, as in earlier releases of Outlook. With either configuration method, you can, for example, modify the list of file types that are blocked in e-mail messages.

The Object Model (OM) Guard that helps prevent viruses from using the Outlook Address Book to propagate themselves is updated. Outlook checks for up-to-date antivirus software to help determine when to display address book access warnings and other Outlook security warnings.

Office Outlook 2007 has several features to help users avoid receiving junk e-mail messages. Office Outlook 2007 includes a Junk E-mail Filter for users that replaces the rules used in previous versions of Outlook to filter mail. Messages caught by the filter are moved to the Junk E-mail folder, where they can be viewed or deleted later. Office Outlook 2007 includes a new Postmarking feature that can help the Junk E-mail filter determine valid e-mail messages.

Junk e-mail senders can include a Web beacon in HTML e-mail messages that includes external content. When users open or view the e-mail, their e-mail address is verified as valid. This increases the likelihood that they will receive more junk e-mail messages. Office Outlook 2007 reduces the likelihood that users will become targets for future junk e-mail by blocking automatic picture-downloads from external servers by default.

Office Outlook 2007 helps protect against issues created by phishing e-mail messages and deceptive domain names. By default, Outlook screens phishing e-mail messages—e-mail that appears to be legitimate but is designed to capture personal information, such as a user's bank account number and password. Outlook also helps prevent e-mail messages from deceptive users by warning about suspicious domain names in e-mail addresses. Office Outlook 2007 supports Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) in e-mail addresses, which allows people to register and use domain names in their native languages instead of online English. IDN support allows phishers to send homograph attacks: a situation in which a look-alike domain name is created using alphabet characters from different languages, not just English, with the intention of deceiving users into thinking they are visiting a legitimate Web site.

Outlook provides cryptographic features for sending and receiving security-enhanced e-mail messages over the Internet or local intranet. You can customize features in an Office Outlook 2007 deployment to set cryptographic options that are appropriate for your organization.

You can also implement additional features to help enhance security in e-mail messaging. For example, you can provide security labels that match your organization's security policy. An Internal Use Only label might be implemented as a security label to apply to mail messages that should not be sent or forwarded outside your company.

Information Rights Management (IRM) helps users prevent sensitive e-mail messages and other 2007 Office system content, such as documents and worksheets, from being forwarded, edited, or copied by unauthorized people. In Office Outlook 2007, users can use IRM to mark e-mail messages with Do not forward, which automatically restricts permission for recipients to forward, print, or copy the message. In addition, you can define customized Office-wide IRM permission policies for your organization's needs and deploy the new permission policies for users to use with e-mail messages or other Office documents.