Cruel Humor - Rick Strahl's Web Log

December 12, 2006 @ 1:50 am- from Maui, Hawaii

So, I turned the big 4.0 a couple of weeks back. And as if that wasn’t bad enough Outlook continues to keep reminding me of the fact by continuously showing me a reminder from hell that my birthday is now 11 days overdue.

So I get to relive this day over and over again... Aaaargh!

Question is how do I get rid of this appointment? I’ve dismissed and even have completely removed the entry out of my address book. After all I know when my own birthday is (well actually the date above is WRONG – Outlook managed to screw up the timezone apparently it’s Dec 1^st).

There’s no entry for this item in my Outlook calendar and I can’t open the item above. I can dismiss it and it goes away until the next time I open Outlook, but it pops right back up like a bad dream. I’ve also tried running ScanPST and although it found errors apparently this wasn’t one of them.

Anybody have any ideas???

Incidentally I'm thinking about my Outlook file in general. As I was checking out this stuff I noticed that my Outlook File format is still using Outlook 97/2000 format and I'm wondering if I should update the file. I can't figure out how to do this however without losing my data and settings.

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# re: Cruel Humor
by sbyard December 12, 2006 @ 2:47 am

Rick,

Give me a telescope and I'll show you my great 4.0 - its miles back there somewhere. To be even more depressing, I've only got the greater 5.0 to look forward to next year.

I liked the picture of the sea-side on your site today. And hey! I did go to Hawii for 3 weeks once, and it was great. But be sympathetic to those of us here in the UK. At this time of year, a dip in the sea is suicidal without a submarine. Ho Hum.

As for the outlook issue - try creating some instances of outlook classes in code and see if you can get to it this way. Maybe you can delete it too.

# re: Cruel Humor
by Duncan Smart December 12, 2006 @ 4:13 am

Maybe Outlook Spy will have the answer? http://www.dimastr.com/outspy/ - shows you all the low-level extended MAPI stuff throughout Outlook

# re: Cruel Humor
by Kevin Dente December 12, 2006 @ 8:16 am

I vaguely recall having this problem ages ago. Back then, I think I resolved it by starting Outlook with the /cleanreminders switch. Don't know if that still works though.

# re: Cruel Humor
by Frank Perez December 12, 2006 @ 9:02 am

Since you can not open the item, this probably won't work. But, what happens if you right click the item (blue line). There could be a "Mark Complete" option if the reminder is from a task.

# re: Cruel Humor
by Jimp December 13, 2006 @ 5:39 am

Do you have a pda that syncs with outlook?

# re: Cruel Humor
by Rick Strahl December 13, 2006 @ 11:20 am

Frank the item has only one context menu option which is Open Item, which doesn't do anything unfortunately. No other options that I can see anywhere.

Jimp, yes Outlook syncs with a SmartPhone, but I also double checked the phone for an entry in those days and there isn't. The phone also doesn't show the reminder - it only shows up on the desktop Outlook.

# re: Cruel Humor
by Peter Bromberg December 16, 2006 @ 5:43 pm

Rick,
I had this problem too when I turned 40. Fortunately, it was so long ago that I don't even remember the brand of machine I had when it occurred. Now I am older and wiser. I keep my birthday reminders in my Yahoo Calendar. The Intellisync app they distribute for free will take them out of both Yahoo and Outlook.

Trust me. There will be more important things to worry about... like what to do when you turn 50!

# re: Cruel Humor
by Jamie Osborn December 17, 2006 @ 7:45 pm

I assume that the command line swtiches are still the same as they've been from Outlook 2000.

Try running Outlook from Start/Run :

outlook /cleanreminders

# re: Cruel Humor
by Rick Strahl December 18, 2006 @ 5:59 am

Jamie, I had tried that before a few times and it didn't work. Tried again today (on day 17 <s>) and this time it took. Gone...