The updated spam filter enhances the junk email filter, helping to provide a higher level of protection against junk email. Download it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=ad3699f7-5cc3-4604-a768-32c4d044b630.

Administrators should visit the Office Resource Kit online for the administrative update. You'll find it at http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2003/admin/olkftr1101a.htm.

More information about the junk filter is available in Knowledge Base article 832333, http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=832333.

For detailed information on how Outlook's junk filter works, see http://www.mapilab.com/articles/outlook_spam_filter.html.

As many users of Exchange and Outlook 2003 discovered, Business Contact Manager is not available when you have an Exchange mailbox in your account, as explained in this Knowledge Base article: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=829748. The workaround is using two different profiles, one for BCM and one for Exchange.

Earlier this week, Microsoft released an update which allows BCM to work with a Small Business Server's Exchange account. You can find the details of the patch and download links to the patch here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=831747. To use this patch you need to use SBS's Exchange server and use cached mode in Outlook.

The fact that only SBS Exchange accounts are supported will disappoint many people. If you are one of the disappointed, please send an email to mswish@microsoft.com with Business Contact Manager in the subject line, requesting support for all users of Exchange server.

After sending a message to MSWish requesting Exchange support, there is a registry hack you can use to make BCM work with Exchange accounts while waiting for Microsoft to release a patch. Since using this registry key puts you into an unsupported mode, use it only after writing to MSWish -- and be aware that like all registry hacks, you're taking your computer's wellbeing into your own hands. Back up your registry first!

To use this hack, enable cached mode if it's not already enabled and close Outlook. Install the SBS patch then add the following key to your registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\smallbusinessserver\clientsetup, add a DWORD named Version with a data value of 5.2.

While I don't expect non-SBS users will have problems using this fix, any more than SBS users will, keep in mind this is unsupported. This means if you have problems with Outlook or BCM when using this key with non-SBS Exchange server accounts, don't call Microsoft's Product Support looking for help until after you remove the key and verify the problem still exists. And don't call us either. And, again, back up your registry first.

Diane Poremsky is the president of CDOLive LLC and a Microsoft Outlook MVP. She's author of Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours (Sam's, 2003) and coauthor of OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide). For questions or suggestions for future columns, write her at outlook@cdolive.com.