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Outlook troubleshooting tip: The magic of the CTRL key

By Chris R. Chapman at August 22, 2008 01:50
Filed Under: outlook2003

Just picked up this tip that you’d think would be common knowledge, but it isn’t.  And it’s pretty cool.

Say you’re having issues with Outlook – it’s not connecting or is intermittent.  What do you do?  We all know we can click the Outlook icon in the task tray, but have you tried holding down the CTRL key while doing the same?  You get two new items in the context menu:

Outlook_tasktray

Notice them?  Connection Status… and Test E-mail AutoConfiguration…

The first menu item brings up a dialog that provides a listing of all the server connections Outlook is maintaining for you and the status of various activities:

Outlook_activity

Test Email AutoConfiguration brings up a really handy utility for validating your connection to Exchange Server (or any other POP3/SMTP server for that matter):

Outlook_testemailconfig

All this troubleshooting magic is courtesy of the CTRL key.  Who knew?

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8/26/2008 2:22:48 AM #

Carl J

Interesting. But why would they make you use the CTRL key? Why not just put the option in there? It's like the "Open with ..." in older versions of Windows, where you had to right click while holding down the CTRL key.

By the way, mine only gives me the first option.

Carl J |

8/27/2008 4:52:14 AM #

Chris R. Chapman

I'm not sure why they make Easter Eggs out of these things - could be a late feature-add or a desire to keep the UI uncluttered.  Beats me.

Are you running Outlook 2003 or 2007?

Chris R. Chapman |

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About Me

I am a Toronto-based software consultant specializing in SharePoint, .NET technologies and agile/iterative/lean software project management practices.

I am also a former Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) Consultant with experience providing enterprise customers with subject matter expertise for planning and deploying SharePoint as well as .NET application development best practices.  I am MCAD certified (2006) and earned my Professional Scrum Master I certification in late September 2010, having previously earned my Certified Scrum Master certification in 2006. (What's the difference?)