Search e-mail at lightspeed: using Lookout with Outlook 2007
Everybody who uses Microsoft Outlook must know that Outlook’s search functionality sucks. Yes, I know that’s a bold statement, but there’s no other way to say it. Outlook search sucks big time, period! Even Joel agrees… My mailbox is growing every day and I find it harder and harder to keep track of its contents. A search through my archived folders often takes a much as a full minute of searching, which I find unacceptable. In the press I often read Microsoft Corporation finds Search important and lately we’ve seen them release some impressive search products (i.e. Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express). Also a major part of my daily job involves implementing SharePoint 2007 solutions at our customers, which most of the time also includes SharePoint’s search feature. But somehow the Outlook team seems to have missed the boat…
Some years ago a guy called Mike Belshe created a great free Outlook add-in called Lookout, that offered a lightning fast search. Within seconds of starting a search (often even within a second!) the results would appear on screen. Microsoft was quick to buy his company and its technology. At that time many people expected Microsoft to integrate Lookout into Outlook, but unfortunately they seem to have shelved it (Mike himself claims some of his Lookout code ended up in Windows Desktop Search). So now there’s no official way to obtain Lookout. Luckily there are many sites that still offer the Lookout download. A quick search on Google should point you to some sites containing working download links.
However, getting Lookout to work with Outlook 2007 is more problematic. It turns out that Lookout checks for specific Office Primary Interop Assemblies (PIAs) and the PIAs that come with Outlook 2007 don’t pass this test. The result is that Lookout prevents itself from running under Outlook 2007 and instead displays this warning message:
After much demand Mike Belshe published a way to get Lookout to work with Outlook 2007. For this you have to rename an Office PIA file, which resides in the Global Assembly Cache. While this solution gets Lookout to work, it may have serious impact on other applications/add-ins that make use of this PIA. So this solution isn’t acceptable for me (and it shouldn’t be for you!).
Instead I opted for a different approach. The only reason that Lookout doesn’t run on Outlook 2007 is that dreaded PIA check. So why not remove it? Which is exactly what I did…
A quick Reflector session revealed that the code that performs the PIA check is located inside the assembly named Inventures_Olk.dll and goes by the name of CheckOutlookInterop(). What it does is compare the installed Office PIA’s name to a built-in string constant. If the match is positive it returns the boolean value true, otherwise it returns false. Using ILDASM I decompiled the assembly to CIL, changed CheckOutlookInterop()’s code to always return true and recompiled the assembly. So that gave me a fully working Lookout version that’s compatible with Outlook 2007!
You can download the patched assembly here. Just replace the the original Inventures_Olk.dll with the patched version and you should be searching your Outlook 2007 content a lightspeed in no time…
Oh yeah, there’s one small issue… It seems Lookout crashes while indexing if you run it on Vista. Bummer…
Update: Recently I discovered there’s another bug in Lookout that causes dates to be parsed incorrectly if you have the .NET Framework 2.0 installed. You can read more about it here. Fortunately someone has fixed this problem and also released a patched DLL that you can download.
Tags: decompiling, ildasm, lookout, outlook 2007, patch, pia
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:44:37
Cool!
This fix is a real saver for Lookout users migrating to Office 2007.
Now I just hope someone will find a solution to successfully run Lookout with Office 2007 on Windows Vista (without the Lookout indexer crashing Outlook).
Leonel
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:00:49
Wow, nice move, Leon! I’m using Copernic Desktop Search, which offers a pretty good Outlook search. But I’m going to try Lookout to see if it’s better.
January 22nd, 2008 at 14:57:45
Great article! I’m using Lookout with Vista and have no problems! Just disable automatic indexing of new e-mails and do it manually.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:54:13
@Rob P: Even manual indexing doesn’t work for me on Vista…
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:13:37
Wow, your solution really works. I had uninstalled Lookout, because Mike’s solution (renaming the PIAs) broke some other add-ins I have installed. But your solution makes them all work again. Thanks again!
Francisca
January 24th, 2008 at 3:07:22
Good.. Glad that you released it. I had the same fix done when i wrote the post but i did not publish it as it will lead to a user agreement violation of lookout (we decompiled the s/w which is not legal).
-Prakash.
January 24th, 2008 at 19:26:10
I am now using Lookeen! Seems to be the perfect replacement for Lookout - unless the price of course.
-J
January 29th, 2008 at 10:34:52
Absolutely brilliant solution. I am so happy that I can use LookOut again, now in Outlook 2007. Desktop Search and others are really not up to the same level as far as speed and accuracy are concerned. Thank you so much !
Erik
January 30th, 2008 at 0:14:24
I am not able to get Lookout to index either.. no matter what folders I select.. it still crashes Outlook. Does anyone know of any tricks to index manually so as not to crash Outlook?
January 30th, 2008 at 11:54:57
@Jeff S: do you mean it crashes on Vista? Or do you experience crashes on Windows XP?
February 27th, 2008 at 4:44:43
Hi guys,
I too have applied both fixes here and am having a problem when i run the indexer.
I’m running Outlook 2007 on Vista, and have had strange results with the indexer. It always crashes Outlook when manually indexing for the first time. Often it crashes very early in the indexing process (just after having gathered all the folders and started indexing), but sometimes it takes a while to crash (got to about 90% before crashing once).
Does anyone have any idea what would be causing this?
March 3rd, 2008 at 17:08:18
I managed to get Lookout to work inside Vista and Outlook 2007 , by the following simple procedure:
1) Install lookout
2) Download and insert the patched Inventures_Olk.dll into the Lookout folder (C/:Programs/lookout). Just click overwrite. You can download the patched file here: http://www.wirwar.com/blog/wp-content/inventures_olk.zip
3) Download and insert the patched Lookout.dll into the Lookout folder (C/:Programs/lookout). Just click overwrite. You can download the patched file here: http://www.scw.us/win/FixingLookout/lookout.dll
Very simple!
March 5th, 2008 at 8:03:47
Mike I tried your solution with Vista, Outlook 2007, & Lookout130 and indexing still crashes. My Lookout was in C:\Program Files\Lookout Software\Lookout, and not C:/programs/lookout
March 5th, 2008 at 10:19:52
I think Mike was just lucky. My patch and the other one mentioned don’t fix anything that I think can be related to the crash on Vista.
March 7th, 2008 at 12:29:52
[...] funktionierte nach der relativ unkomplizierten Installation leider nicht mehr. Dieser Artikel http://www.wirwar.com/blog/2008/01/22/search-e-mail-at-lightspeed-using-lookout-with-outlook-2007/ zeigt, wie man lookout und Outlook 2007 zur Zusammenarbeit bringt. Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) [...]
March 10th, 2008 at 10:20:45
Any reason why I can’t see the download of the patch? A ‘divine’ intervention from M$ perhaps? I hope not…Outlook 2007 search suck indeed, and this looks like a miracle…if I can get the files I need.
March 10th, 2008 at 10:22:12
Nevermind the above comment…It appears to be a Firefox thingy…again.
March 19th, 2008 at 18:38:02
hi, help. i was getting the same error above “lookout failed to start” i’ve replaced the Inventures_Olk.dll. the error has left but i’m still not seeing lookout on my tool bar (outlook 07). I expected to see it the same as in ol03. I also replaced lookout.dll after that. Am i missing something?
I could really use your help. i use this every second for my job.
thanks for your help
paul
March 27th, 2008 at 15:51:18
Missing Toolbar
I followed these instructions and changed the Inventures DLL and the CheckOutlook DLL, but I find no Lookout Toolbar.
Now when I load up Outlook I get no errors. Lookout shows in the COM Add-ins part of the 2007 “Trustcenter” and the OutlookAddInShim.dll file is loaded there.
What have I done wrong??
HELP
March 28th, 2008 at 1:01:10
@Jer: What if you press the right mouse button on one of the visible toolbars in Outlook 2007? Do you see the Lookout toolbar in the menu that appears? Maybe the Lookout toolbar installed just fine, but is only hidden? You could also try re-installing…
March 31st, 2008 at 23:17:17
I have been using Lookout, patched, on Vista home premium / Office 2007 without issues for a few days now.
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:17:39
I don’t know why my above install explanation did not work. For me it working flawlessly. I have also installed Lookout on several other VISTA/office 2007 machines, and there have been no problems. Please note that I have installed Lookout vers. 1.2 (Lookout120.exe).
Patches have to be installede in the following folder:
C:\Program Files\Lookout Software\Lookout
/Mike
May 14th, 2008 at 21:46:56
Sorry, I submitted an erroneous email address so resubmitting my question.
This fix only worked partially for me. I repalced the Inventures_Olk.dll in my C:\Program Files\Lookout Software\Lookout folder with the downloaded one. Now when I start Outlook I see the Lookout toolbar but I get a message “I’m sorry but a serious program error (Method ‘SupportsCatagorize’ in tupe ‘Chrome.Indexing.DocumentsEx’ from assembly ‘Lookout, Version 1.2.0.1924, Culture=nuetral, PublicKeyToken=null’ does not have an implementation.) occurred” error. I also get a similar error when I try to kick off the indexer.
Any thoughts? Thanks again for the tool.
May 14th, 2008 at 22:03:45
Darrel, are you using Vista? There have been reports that Lookout doesn’t work well on Vista. Also you could check if you have the latest version of Lookout installed. I think I used V1.3.0, but I’d have to check.
May 15th, 2008 at 17:57:02
No I am not using Vista. I am on XP Pro SP2. I was using Lookout 1.2.0.1924.
I unistalled 1.2.0.1924 and loaded 1.3.0.24057. This solved my problem and I am back using lookout!
For those using MS Groove. I had the Trial version as a Outlook Add-in and Lookout never seemed happy until I Disabled that Add-in. I don’t know if this was relevant but I didn’t like Groove anyway and my problem is gone.
Thanks for the help Leon!!
May 18th, 2008 at 23:41:14
Glad to see that that version upgrade solved your problems, Darrell.
May 22nd, 2008 at 19:48:19
I did the same thing as mentioned here
Mike Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 17:08:18
I managed to get Lookout to work inside Vista and Outlook 2007 , by the following simple procedure:
1) Install lookout
2) Download and insert the patched Inventures_Olk.dll into the Lookout folder (C/:Programs/lookout). Just click overwrite. You can download the patched file here: http://www.wirwar.com/blog/wp-content/inventures_olk.zip
3) Download and insert the patched Lookout.dll into the Lookout folder (C/:Programs/lookout). Just click overwrite. You can download the patched file here: http://www.scw.us/win/FixingLookout/lookout.dll
Very simple!
It still the same - it does start the index, but as soon as it reaches to some value - may be 10 %, it crashes
Vista SP1 - Outlook 2007
Any tips/suggestions
May 30th, 2008 at 3:33:37
Thank you, thank you, thank you. So much of my job requires quick access to all of the information that I have in emails, I was crippled without this tool. I archive into a new PST file each month, to keep them small enough to keep CD backups of all my email from the last 6 years.
I feel whole again!
June 5th, 2008 at 14:00:51
This is great. I just been updated to OL2007 and was horrified at the built in searching and that LookOut wouldn’t work.
I have noticed something though - in the search results window I used to be able to preview the message in a little pop up box when I hovered about the entry. On my XP SP2 machine this doesn’t display - it just flickers as it tries to draw the box. Its a bit of a pain, but not enough to make me leave LookOut.
Anyone else notice this or have any idea what me be causing it?
June 20th, 2008 at 13:31:04
I’m having the same problem that Paul Davis and @Jer mentioned back in March. I’ve installed and everything seemed to go OK but there’s no Outlook toolbar. The toolbar isn’t a choice in the right-click menu either. Any suggestions?
June 24th, 2008 at 19:04:24
Where is this Inventures_Olk.dll file located? I can’t find it in my Office 2007 directories.
Thanks.
June 24th, 2008 at 19:14:46
Ignore my question please. I should have read the postings carefully.
June 25th, 2008 at 17:36:43
I can confirm that the 2 patches that Mike posted have worked succesfully for me first time. It is great to have lookout back! Though unfortunately it has not worked on my colleagues computer with the exact same set up as mines (outlook 2003 + vista) so wether it will work or not is not certain but i recommend trying it.
July 1st, 2008 at 22:52:54
[...] and Inventures_old.dll. Unzip the latter and use them to overwrite what Lookout already installed. Leon Zandman’s been writing more on [...]
July 8th, 2008 at 16:21:28
Still no luck with the toolbar (and it’s driving me crazy)!! I’ve tried uninstalling and then installing v1.2.0 and that doesn’t work either. The toolbar is just not an option from the right-click menu. Leon … can you help??!? Thanks!!
July 12th, 2008 at 1:35:52
Same problem here.
Outlook 2007 on Windows XP. Lookout 1.3
- Got the pop up with error message.
(not in the right-click menu either)
- Replaced Inventures_Olk.dll
- No error message, but no toolbar either
Tried reinstalling, restarting, to no avail.
Is it possible to manually run lookout after Outlook is up to perhaps “wake up” lookout?
Thanks for any help.
July 14th, 2008 at 13:38:11
@Roberto and SteveG: Sorry guys, but I can’t help you. It all works fine for me.
July 29th, 2008 at 23:36:35
[...] I just found out about a couple of modified .dlls you can load which do away with the need for “major” hacking and seem to work just [...]
August 3rd, 2008 at 21:12:58
For Roberto - did you check to see if lookout was disabled? i think this happened to me once. Check Help->Disabled Items. Probably you have to restart afterwards.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:34:48
How I Uninstall Look out form Outlook 2007 win xp?
thank you for help
d.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:34:27
I performed the replacement of the DLLs on Vista and Outlook 2007. It seems to work with Lookout Version 1.20, but *not* with 1.30, so make sure you patch the Lookout 1.20 version.
I don’t know the difference between the lookout versions. Maybe somebody develops a patch for the “latest” 1.30 version?
August 31st, 2008 at 15:21:48
It works well.
Lookout 1.20 and patches mentioned above.
Vista Enterprice SP1, MS office 2007 SP1.
Thanks all!
September 4th, 2008 at 15:19:29
Many many thanks. It was exactly what I was looking for.
Works fine under XP+Outlook2007.
Thank you!
September 10th, 2008 at 21:32:28
Works for me with Lookout 1.3 + Office 2007 + Windows XP. Thank you - it’s a real time-saver. Wonder why this functionality isn’t just built-into Outlook 2007.
September 27th, 2008 at 3:00:05
Had same problem with Lookout toolbar not showing up. XP, OL2007, and Lookout. Checked under Help->Disabled Items and found an item there which I enabled. Closed OL and restarted and Lookout began with indexing wizard starting up.
Thanks for keeping this great software running on the new OL!
-wb
October 2nd, 2008 at 21:47:05
as one post noted … i am well again
thank you
i did a small test and i was amazed (again)
any plans for enhancements