This isn’t something I’ve had to do for quite a while so, mostly for my own reference, here are some of the more common pitfalls after you’ve done the mail-merging legwork.
MAPI32.DLL
If you have the Exchange admin tools installed this DLL gets replaced. It’s usually found in c:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32. But if you place a copy of the correct MAPI32.DLL file version into the same folder as Outlook (usually C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office<version number>) Outlook will find that one first.
This eliminates the nasty MAPI error messages and still allows your admin tools to work.
Security Settings
At the final hurdle, just as your mail merge is ready to go, you get the ‘Do you want to allow this?’ message. This is then followed by a succession of ‘allow/deny’ dialogue boxes – one per message – which can get a bit wearing if you’re emailing hundreds of people…
The fix (if you don’t want to resort to third-party software, such as ‘ClickYes’) is to install the Office 2007 group policy template from Microsoft. Having downloaded that, launch the group policy editor MMC snap-in. Under ‘User Configuration’ select ‘Administrative Templates’. Right-click, select ‘Add/Remove templates’ and browse to the Outlook ADM file (ADM\en-us\OUTLK12.ADM).
You now have additional settings for Outlook 2007. Under ‘Security’ change ‘Programmatic Access Security’ to ‘enabled’ with ‘Never warn me about suspicious activity’ selected. Don’t forget to reset this afterwards!