Command-line switches for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007

The command that starts Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 is outlook.exe. A command-line switch is the addition of a forward slash followed by the command name and any parameters.

What are commands and switches?
Each time you start the program, you run the outlook.exe command, although you do not usually type the command or even see it. You can change certain aspects of how the program starts by adding subcommands called switches to the outlook.exe command.
A switch appears as a space after the main command, followed by a forward slash and the name of the switch, which provide further information about how to execute the command.

Use a switch once by adding it to the Run command
First, verify the location of the outlook.exe file on your computer. If you accepted the default folder locations when you installed Office Outlook 2007, the outlook.exe file is located at the following:
c:\program files\microsoft office\office12\outlook.exe
If you do not find the outlook.exe file at that location, search for the file and make a note of the full path.
1.Do one of the following:
Windows Vista
Click the Windows Start button, point to All Programs, click Accessories, and then click Run.
Microsoft Windows XP or Microsoft Windows Server 2003
Click the Windows Start button, and then click Run.
2.In the Run dialog box, type a quotation mark, enter the full path for the outlook.exe file, and then type another quotation mark. Alternatively, click Browse to locate and select the file. In this case, the quotation marks are supplied automatically.
3.After the closing quotation mark, type a space, and then type the switch. For example, you might type:
"c:\program files\microsoft office\office12\outlook.exe" /nopreview
The next time that you start Office Outlook 2007, the program opens normally. To make your customized startup available for repeated uses, see the next section.

Make a switch available for reuse by creating a shortcut
First, verify the location of the outlook.exe file on your computer. If you accepted the default folder locations when you installed Office Outlook 2007, the outlook.exe file is probably located at the following:
c:\program files\microsoft office\office12\outlook.exe
If you do not find the outlook.exe file at that location, search for the file and make a note of the full path.
1.Right-click the Windows desktop, point to New, and then click Shortcut on the shortcut menu.
2.In the Create Shortcut Wizard, in the Type the location of the item box, type a quotation mark, enter the full path for the outlook.exe file, and then type another quotation mark. Alternatively, click Browse to locate and select the file. In this case, the quotation marks are supplied automatically.
3.After the closing quotation mark, type a space, and then type the switch and any parameters. For example, you might type:
"c:\program files\microsoft office\office12\outlook.exe" /nopreview

4.Click Next.
5.In the Type a name for this shortcut box, type a name for the shortcut, and then click Finish.
The wizard creates the shortcut on the desktop.
6.Whenever you want to start Office Outlook 2007 in this particular customized way, double-click the shortcut.