Windows Tip: Scripting multiple Outlook windows

By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Most knowledge workers in enterprise environments live by Microsoft Outlook. Email is so important for today's businesses that getting the most out of using Outlook is essential for job effectiveness.

One complaint I used to have about Outlook 2003 was that I could only open one copy of the program at a time. Double-click on the Outlook shortcut on the desktop, and an Outlook window opens. Double-click on the same shortcut again and nothing happens. This frustrates me because I could manage my email more efficiently if I could have multiple Outlook windows open, one displaying my general Inbox, another my Urgent folder where I route mail that's flagged as important, another my folder where I route mail for a big project I'm working on, and so on. It's great to be able to create rules in Outlook that will route incoming messages to whatever folders they should be directed, but I'd like to have these folders always visible on my desktop so I can easily see new messages arriving in each folder.

Here's a little script that helps you open multiple Outlook windows.