outlook link protocol - link mangled by browser or Outlook?
 

I have a browser application running in an intranet. My users are a mix
of Outlook 2002 and 2003. They use a mix of IE6, IE7, and latest
Firefox. My application provides outlook links like so:

outlook://Inbox
outlook://Calendar
outlook://Tasks
outlook://Public%20Folders/All%20Public%20Folders/Accounts/SomeCompany/Log

The links work for some users and for others get mangled and end up
looking like this:

outlook:/./\Inbox\

This, of course, does not work. It appears that either the browser or
Outlook is trying to "fix" the link.

In my testing, I learned that these work, and alleviate the problem:

outlook:Inbox
outlook:Calendar
outlook:Tasks

Notice I removed the double forward-slashes (//). However, these
slashes are apparently necessary to access the public folders because
the link does not work without them.

I am surprised by the inconsistent and lacking functionality in what
could be a very useful feature. Sue Mosher, in another topic, replied
to let me know that the Outlook link protocol is being "deemphasized"
in future versions of Outlook. Sigh. Nobody is better than Microsoft at
building and promoting foundations for developers to build on top of
then moving the foundation. To be fair, nobody has built more or better
foundations than Microsoft...so kudos I guess. :)