Outlook 2003 Out of Office

Outlook when used in association with Microsoft exchange server services is entitled to a facility as out of office assistant using which it is possible to send reply to incoming emails with predefined template for the purpose. Outlook users who have included exchange server transport service in their account are entitled to use the facility which is quite helpful in keeping other intimated in times of vacation or when the user is out of work and may not individually reply to user mails.

Though out of office in different versions of outlook is found to work quite efficiently, it too at times could render errors & message leading the process to be terminated abruptly. One such instance that has been observed by users on a quite frequent note is that of outlook 2003 out of office error -

“The command is not available. See the program documentation about how to use this extension”

This, error of out of office the command is not available is mostly shown when user tries to start the outlook out of office 2003 by selecting the option pertaining to the same using tools menu option. Here in the situation it is of utmost importance to have the issue cause rectified in order to get it fixed in the most outright way.

Other than the temporary issue that arise out of system inconsistency & are resolved following a restart. The another & the major reason for the outlook 2003 out of office not working is owing to the presence of the following key in registry – HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Resiliency, which prevents the utility from functioning.

How to fix 'outlook out of office command not available or is not working'?

To get the error fixed, user should get the application closed and it must also be ensured that the program process has completely been terminated by ending its process outlook.exe from Windows Task Manager accessible using ALT+CTRL+DEL key.

After Task Manager has been closed. Open registry editor by typing regedit and extreme care should be taken by anyone when carrying out there processes as incorrect changes could impose fatal effects on the user bringing system functionality to halt.

Locate the key – HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook and right click to find its sub-key and rename it as resiliency.old and close the editor thereafter. Following a restart you will find outlook working properly once again and clicking & trying to use the office assistant would not throw out of office error, helping with its proper use.