Microsoft has released KB2822208 in response to the problems that users reported where they were unable to delete messages when working with Outlook in online mode.
After a great deal of hard word to investigate the possible root causes, Microsoft has determined that the issues lie with attachments generated by third party add-on products for Exchange. The KB mentions two types:
- Unable to soft delete messages that contain voice mail attachments.
- Unable to soft delete messages sent from FAX server, printer or scanner which have attachments (such as .PDF).
The problem first emerged when users reported that they couldn’t deal with messages containing PDF attachments generated by multi-function printers, so Microsoft’s KB is in line with real-life experience. The problems with voicemail surfaced soon afterwards and seem to be associated with Cisco Unity rather than Exchange’s own Unified Messaging.
No software fix is available yet, so all you can do is either use Outlook in cached Exchange mode (the delete actions are processed locally and then synchronized back to the server) or perform a “hard delete” by pressing the Shift/Delete combination. This action bypasses the normal processing Outlook does when deleting messages (a soft delete which moves items into the Deleted Items folder) and uses a different code path to avoid the problem. Messages that are hard deleted go into the Recoverable Items folder instead of Deleted Items.
I’m sure that the Exchange team is working hard to figure out a better fix that can be implemented in software. For now all you can do is use the workarounds.
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