Dell notebooks have trouble with Outlook appointments becoming "recurring" even though that was not the intention!

If you use a Dell notebook (and possibly other brands) and suddenly you've started to have all meetings you are invited to show up as "recurring", then you may want to read on. It turns out Dell includes a certain little Outlook Add-In which causes your accepted meeting invitations to become recurring in your calendar! Luckily the solution is very, very simple. If you are a techie or want to know the background to this, read on. Otherwise, if you only care for the solution, skip to the "Solution" section of this article.

Background
I've been sporting a new Dell Vostro 1500 for about 3 months now. I am very happy with this model and it's fast and efficient. I loaded it with 4GB RAM and manage my startup items very carefully to make sure I have no cpu-stealing crap-ware. I even took care to remove all the unnecessary applications that came with the notebook, making sure that I either installed everything in it OR that I knew (and needed) what was left pre-installed.

However, over the last few weeks I started to notice that I had a pretty full week with many recurring calendar items. All of the suspicious recurring items were "invitations" (meetings setup by others) that I had been invited to and accepted at one point or another. As I started to check with the organizers of these meetings, all assured me that they never made the meetings recurring at all. Somehow, the problem was on my end, that much was clear.

So, in order to figure out what could be going on, I would wait for the next request from someone and do some poking around before accepting. It turns out that instead of accepting from the EMAIL, Outlook also lets you see your "calendar" with the new meeting on it by clicking on "View Calendar". From there, it is possible to open the meeting and accept (or reject). So, as the next meeting came, I went to my calendar and confirmed it was showing up (and there was NO recurrence on the meeting). I opened the appointment and clicked on ACCEPT and much to my surprise, indeed something had instantly changed the meeting to recurring (complete with the nice recurrence icon). Opening the meeting provided NO way to eliminate recurrence (as you normally can with meetings you create yourself.) My only choice was to delete the meeting!

Research
Luckily for all of us, Google exists, so I immediately searched Google for "all outlook appointments are recurring when ACCEPTED" and the first link presented a similar issue. It's a BLOG posting entitled "Outlook appointments become recurring appointments" where the author had noticed that when he would edit appointments (not when he would create them,) somehow they would end up as recurring even though that had not been the intention. And the culprit according to this posting? A little Outlook Add-In called "Outlookaddinsetup". Although this BLOG cited the solution as the removal of the add-in, I needed to know more about the add-in and what I was about to "break" by removing it!

My next Google search was for the name of the add-in, and that brought up multiple forum postings and other articles including "Why does Outlook runs so slowly on my new Dell laptop?"
I personally did not experience slow down (or maybe I had not noticed) but this article also pointed to the same add-in and described it as "responsible for converting meeting requests to recurring meetings and creating calendar and contact folders when saving attachments" and part of Dell's Media Direct software.

I remember seeing Media Direct in my notebook and left it thinking it was the DVD player software from Dell. Apparently, there is more to this program than I thought. A quick click on the icon fired it up for inspection. Indeed, there is a feature in there called "Instant Office". Going into the feature does indeed show options for viewing contacts and calendar items. Apparently, when the notebook is off, it is possible to fire up Media Direct via the dedicated button on the notebook. Once it comes up (presumably faster than loading the operating system), it's possible to use this program to listen to music, view movies on the computer and this "Instant Office" which allows you to view Powerpoint presentations as well as contacts and calendar items. View the Dell's Media Direct marketing page here. This may be a nice feature for some, but for me, the way the add-in works (making meeting invites "recurring") makes it useless. I don't know if the problem is a "feature" or a "bug", but various postings on the Dell Forums confirm that MANY people have had this problem and have solved it by simply removing the OutlookAddInSetup program.

In all fairness to Dell, the Media Direct software is a product by Cyberlink for Dell. I did various Google searches on "Cyberlink, Outlook" and other keywords and could only confirm that add-in to be problematic - and - a huge resource hog.

Some posts recommend removing the Media Direct altogether. I don't think that is necessary, though, and simple removal of the problematic add-in has worked well for me and many others. I may not use Media Direct for the "Instant Office", but I do use it to play DVDs on my Dell. I suppose I could install another DVD player, but until Media Direct proves to cause other problems for me, I don't see the point in removing it.

Solution
Open up your Control Panel.
Select "Add/Remove" programs.
Find the entry "Outlookaddinsetup".
Click on REMOVE.
Enjoy your faster computer now with correct recurrence in appointments!