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New Microsoft Office Outlook Connector Beta Release with Calendar Sync

The Windows Live Calendar Team has announced the availability of the Microsoft Office Outlook Connector 12.1 Beta - which allows you to sync your calendars on Windows Live Calendar (calendar.live.com).

Download: Microsoft Office Outlook Connector 12.1 Beta

The Microsoft Office Outlook Connector is designed to sync your Windows Live Hotmail mailbox, Windows Live Contacts, and calendars in Windows Live Calendar to Microsoft Office 2007 (or 2003). The Microsoft Office Outlook Connector will work with any Windows Live Hotmail account - as well as Office Live accounts or Windows Live Custom Domain accounts (domains.live.com). Not only do I have a Windows Live Hotmail account - I also have a custom domain that uses Windows Live Hotmail as well.

When I installed the Microsoft Outlook Connector Beta - my calendars that I have in Windows Live Calendar appeared in Outlook 2007 under "My Calendars". I could check each calendar that I want to view (whether it be all or just 3 as you see in my screenshot). I can add and remove events and those changes are then synced back into Windows Live Calendar and then synced to any other machine running Outlook and the Microsoft Office Outlook Connector. Whether I am offline or online - I can always view my calendars which is really nice.

The current version of the Microsoft Office Outlook Connect 12.1 Beta is 12.0.6237.1003. To find out what version you are running choose "Outlook Connector" in Outlook's menu at the top and then choose "About Outlook Connector". You have to be running this version to get calendar sync with Windows Live Calendar. Previous versions of the Microsoft Office Outlook Connector will not sync your calendars.

I'm a little late posting on this - Sarah Perez over on ReadWriteWeb has an excellent post on the Microsoft Office Outlook Connector as well and definitely worth a read. Paul Thurrott (regarding the release of the new Outlook Connector Beta) says "this could be huge". The Microsoft Office Outlook Connector 12.1 Beta certainly creates a great experience with Windows Live by bringing together email, contacts, and calendaring all in one spot. I know for many people wanting such an experience for a while now - this *is* huge for them and very exciting to see.

The Windows Live Calendar Team also recently made an update to the Windows Live Calendar service introducing some awesome new enhancements such as iCal subscriptions and an automatic Birthday Calendar for all your Windows Live Contacts. Check out my post on last week's Windows Live Calendar update here.


Comments

  1. Posted on: July 25, 2008 at 9:05AM  

    Woah, Great!

    Now the only thing I really miss:

    I changed my sender address in hotmail, which works nicely, except when I'm sending Mail using the outlook connector.

    In that case, the mail is sent using the hotmail-adress as sender, which is a pity.

  2. Posted on: July 25, 2008 at 10:10AM  

    Are contacts, tasks and notes synchronized as well?

  3. Posted on: July 25, 2008 at 4:35PM  

    I have 2 @live.nl accounts.

    I have 1 @live.com account.

    I have 2 @hotmail.com accounts.

    All of them except 1 hotmail account synchronizes fine in OL 2007 + Connector

    It won't sync on:

    - vista business

    - outlook (OL) 2007

    - OL connector 12.0.4518.1068 or 12.0.6237.1003

    - SINCE after (multiple times) re-installing vista and of course outlook also.

    that hotmail account synchronizes fine on:

    - XP pro

    - outlook 2007

    - OL connector 12.0.4518.1068

    details of the hotmail account:

    - free hotmail account (5GB storage)

    - 1.3GB emaildata

    - used since before 2001

    Does anyone have a solution for my problem?

    It really starting to frustrate me..

  4. Posted on: July 27, 2008 at 3:48PM  

    barleone, I would post your problem over on the Outlook Team Blog as they may be better equipped to help you than we would here.

    http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2008/07/23/new-microsoft-office-outlook-connector-version-12-1-beta-released.aspx

    Thanks,

    Brandon

  5. Posted on: July 29, 2008 at 12:10PM  

    Guidance please...This was working perfectly until yesterday....i think live calendar was down yesterday for a period...getting an update I am guessing....However, since its came back..I get an error in outlook while syncing...any ideas please?

  6. Posted on: July 29, 2008 at 4:53PM  

    jvenables, please elaborate - did calendary sync stop working or just email?

    Thanks,

    Brandon

  7. Posted on: July 30, 2008 at 1:55PM  

    Hotmail stopped syncing with Outlook last week, so I downloaded new version of connector 12.1 (matches numbers above in the blog). Using Outlook 2007 and XP. Still will not sync...only displays:

    mail : connecting

    calendar : connecting

    contacts : connecting

    I see on another blog where others have had this problem. Is there a cure?

    Thanks

Trackbacks

  1. Posted by: BestSnowman.NET on July 28, 2008 at 9:30PM

    New Outlook Connector Beta