One of the stranger bugs to sweep through the office over the last month or so is the sudden disappearance of the Appointment Tab in Outlook 2007. This is the first tab in the Ribbon when you add or edit a Calendar Appointment.
This is the tab you should be able to see when creating or editing an Appointment in Microsoft Outlook.
Like most things, this is a really simple one to fix once you know the cause.
The solution is to disable the iCloud add-on from Outlook. However, it won’t allow you to do that from the Options area like any other add-on. iCloud must be removed from the “Programs” Control Panel area like a regular application.
I haven’t yet found a user who uses the iCloud app on their work computer, and removing it does not seem to break iTunes.
If you do have a user who absolutely needs the iCloud Windows App, there are two work arounds to keep using the Outlook Appointment Tab functionality:
- Add the buttons from the tab into the “Quick Access toolbar”, near the save button. This can be done by right clicking on this bar and selecting “Customise Quick Access Toolbar”. You can then add the functionality you need back in.
- Run Outlook in Safe Mode when you need to create or edit a new Appointment. This can be done in Windows 7 by typing the following into the Start Menu Search box: “outlook.exe /safe”. You can also create a shortcut with the /safe switch to make it that little bit easier.
Hopefully a patch from Apple in the future will resolve this bug and eliminate the need for these workarounds.
Anthony Eden is a technologist. He's been developing software and websites and working in broadcast media for over 8 years now. He works full time for Hope Media, and provides contract services through Media Realm.
Follow Anthony on Twitter: @anthony_eden or Google+
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