The first thing I want to say to people reading this thread is:
This article is NOT a way to code a virus which will bypass the security of Outlook (if we can consider there is some...
)The purpose of this is to help people who have one day faced the problem of writing a macro in a coporate environment which has to send a mail to a list of contacts !!!
Since the SP2 of Outlook 2000 and every further versions of Outlook if you program such a thing in VBA code, it will result in the following prompts appearing while trying to send the message :
Isnt't that annoying ??? The whole purpose of automating the send-out is lost because you now have to stay in front of the PC and wait 5 seconds between each message to click "Yes, I'm sure I want to let an external component send a message...." !!!
Let's now talk about the solutions
1. If you google a bit (doesn't need much time
) you will surely find this program : Express ClickYesHow does it work ?? It is a simple program which is running in background of windows. Attention : it is not installing itself as aservice... it is just adding itself to the startup of windows !!
Then each time the prompts shown above are poping, it automatically clicks on Yes. the big problem with that, is again security, because it doesn't care who is asking to send the messages... it just says "Yes" everytime
Positive: It's a freeware, easy to use and install.
Negative: It always says Yes, and doesn't do the difference between a virus asking the authorization, or a trusted vba macro/code.
2. Another solution to that is to use an additional component which is called Outlook Redemption.
It has to be added to your VBA or VB project and then you can use your code without worrying about these security prompts anymore !!!
There are other interesting features, but I won't discuss it there
Positive: It does not affect the security of outlook. The component just bypasses it when needed. Freeware
Negative: It might be used for non-trusted purpose, but so far didn't heard of it. You need to have access to the code and have the know-how to add the component.
3. Advanced Security for Outlook is a freeware that will ask you when you want to give access to a certain component or not. It works exactly the same as software firewalls when they ask you : "Are you sure to let the following program access the Internet... ?".
Below is an example of prompt you will get when something tries to automatically use the send functions of Outlook (you don't get it when you want to manually send a mail
) :
Positive: It triggers directly the calls to Outlook, so you are able to check the source asking for access. Plus you can have a different policy for each component. User-friendly. Freeware.
Negative: Might be source of problem for standard users in a corporate environemnt.
4. The last solution is something which I just heard about so I can't tell you a lot about it. It is possible through the Exchange Server to disable the security option of Outlook for specific users.
More info : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290499/en-us
Positive: Supported by Microsoft.
Negative: You need to have an Exchange environment. Granularity ?
Here it is !
Hope it will help some of you guys
