Some Outlook 2007 issues with Parallels 5

Discussion in 'Windows Virtual Machine' started by Brian Trombley, Dec 4, 2009.

  1. Brian Trombley

    Brian Trombley Bit poster

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    I'm having a few issues with Outlook 2007 after transitioning from Parallels 4 to 5. In short:

    - When scheduling meetings, Outlook is no longer able to retrieve other users' free/busy data. That makes it very difficult to schedule meetings.

    - When disconnecting and then reconnecting to the network (in this case, via a Ethernet cable), sometimes Outlook reports that it is connected but fails to update. If you click on Outlook and choose "Work offline", Outlook continues to say it is connected for some time. The only way to fix this is to disconnect again, wait a little while for Outlook to switch to "offline", then reconnect and tell Outlook to connect again.


    Both of these issues appear to be new with Parallels 5. I'd appreciate any insight that you have.
     
  2. Elric

    Elric Parallels Team

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    Thank you for the report. We will check
     
  3. jlaguda

    jlaguda Bit poster

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    not connectivity issues

    I am having issue of another sort with running Outlook 2007 in the Parallels 5 environment. Similar issue showed up in another part of the forum, but doesn't directly address an issue with 2007, but I feel are related. Let me give detail on this:

    User has three Macs: Desktop at home, desktop at the office and a laptop. All three are running Snow Leopard OS. All three run Parallels 5.0. All three run Windows XP Professional. All three run Office 2007.

    The issue is with Outlook 2007 and more specifically the Calendar with Daylight Savings Time. Items created in Outlook within the DST affected zones have invitees show up an hour later in their Outlook. The same thing applies to the users Blackberry. After applying DST patches to all XP OS on all machines and Outlook DST patches to Outlook, it pushes the dates, but they are still one hour off to all receiving attendees and also the Blackberry.

    To further show what troubleshooting step I took, I made sure the OS for all machines had the adjust for daylight savings time check box marked. I also looked to Outlook Web Access and saw that those appointments show one hour off.

    My logic shows that Exchange is reflecting the correct time for DST. OWA shows the correct time for DST. The Outlooks on all machine, while showing the times he set the appointments for correctly as they were set in Outlook, is not interpreting the data on the Exchange Server correctly. So the last thing to troubleshoot was Parallels, to which I found this:

    Parallels 5 and DST structure
    Nov 25, 2009, 11:34 PM

    #1

    Douglas Weber

    Join: Nov 2009
    Posts: 2
    Parallels 5 and DST structure


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Using XP in Parallels 5 on Snow Leopard, the structure returned giving the DST information seems to be bad. We have an application that depends on this data and it is reporting that that data is not properly formatted. I do not know the API being called right now but will post it next week when I can get to the code. I have reverted to Parallels 4 and the problem goes away, so it is definitely a Parallels 5 issue. Is this a known issue and is a fix in the works?

    Nov 30, 2009, 12:48 PM

    #2

    Douglas Weber

    Join: Nov 2009
    Posts: 2
    Continuation of the DST issue

    The following windows code is used to get the DST info:

    TIME_ZONE_INFORMATION timeWarp;

    DWORD tz_result = GetTimeZoneInformation(&timeWarp);

    Our code splits this structure and sends the fields individually. The other side of this transaction reports

    Month = 0
    Day = 1
    seconds = 7200

    as not being valid for DST info

    It looks promising, but is this a resolution? Am I supposed to make a change to a registry entry, or is this just pointing to an issue that exists?

    What are your insights? So you have a better picture, Ive created new test appointments in Outlook 2007. OWA shows it an hour off and so does the Blackberry (within the DST affected dates). If I invite attendees, they show it an hour off also.
     
  4. Elric

    Elric Parallels Team

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    Thank you for the report. The fix for this problem will be included to the nearest update.
     
  5. jlaguda

    jlaguda Bit poster

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    any word

    when will the update be scheduled for release? any estimated date?
     
  6. Elric

    Elric Parallels Team

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  7. jlaguda

    jlaguda Bit poster

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    no status changed

    I applied the patch and it didn't resolve anything with regards to this issue. I guess we have to keep pressing on regarding this fix.
     
  8. theirongiant

    theirongiant Bit poster

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    A permanent fix for the free/busy problem.

    We discovered a fix almost by accident through trial-and-error. The best part is that it only needs to be done once. No need for the user to log out** or close Outlook, and it survives a reboot.

    This was tested in Office 2007 SP2 with Parallels 5.0.9310.

    INSTRUCTIONS:
    1) Make sure the user has local admin rights** (usually applies to domain accounts).
    2) Go to Parallels > Virtual Machine > Configure... > Options > Services > UNCHECK Time [ ] Synchronize with Mac
    3) Open the Date/Time control panel
    4) Set to any other time zone, press Apply.
    5) Set back to the original (correct) time zone, press Apply.
    6) Open Outlook and create/view a calendar appointment with invitees.
    7) Open the scheduling tab. Click Options > Refresh Free/Busy Data.

    If done properly, the free/busy data appears and will always appear the first time thereafter.

    This procedure will not work if the user account is not a local administrator.

    **If you (or the IT department) enables local administrator privileges on the spot, you will need to log the user out, and log back in.
     
  9. Brian Trombley

    Brian Trombley Bit poster

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    On step 3, do you mean we should change the time zone on the Mac or on the Windows VM?
     
  10. AnttiK

    AnttiK Bit poster

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    I've just recently heard of a similar problem at me wife's work and as I too am quite possibly transferring to a position in which I would be using Outlook - and its calendar option - over Parallels Desktop 5, I would very much like to hear whether there has been any progress on this issue, or whether there is any update coming in the near future to fix this issue.

    Cheers,
    Antti from Finland
     
  11. Elric

    Elric Parallels Team

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    1,718
    Hi, yes, the fix for this issue will included in the next update.

    For now afaik this may help: http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=97498
     
  12. theirongiant

    theirongiant Bit poster

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    Great! When can we expect this update? We're a Mac shop with 200+ users running Parallels 5.0.9310, and about 1/4 of those are managers running Outlook 2007 in Parallels (because Entourage 2008 and Web Services Edition both suck).

    Thanks!
     
  13. SylvainF

    SylvainF Bit poster

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    Still the same issue

    I have still the same issue (free/busy data unavailable) even with the 9370 build. The workaround does not work for me... :(
    Any idea ? When did the fix will be delivered ?
     
  14. Jazz_On_Tap

    Jazz_On_Tap Bit poster

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    We have this same issue (free/busy data unavailable). When will the fix be out for this? Thanks.
     

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