Outlook 2002 Holidays Update

Very annoying. The holidays in Outlook 2002 (aka Outlook XP) only extend through 2005. I guess that's part of Microsoft's planned obsolescence, but I need to schedule beyond 2005, and I intend to keep using Office XP as long as possible. Strangely, Microsoft released a calendar update for 2007, but only for Outlook 2000! Well, even though the Outlook 2000 holiday update available here won't update Outlook 2002, you can use the data in the update to update your holidays. You can download this file, which has updated United States holidays through 2007, and replace your current holiday data. I suggest you backup your current file that this download replaces.

  1. Locate the file "outlook.hol" on your harddrive (usually in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\1033)
  2. Backup your current "outlook.hol" file (for example, save as outlook.hol_original)
  3. Save the new outlook.hol file in this directory
  4. Open Outlook and delete all holidays (try viewing by category)
  5. From the "Tools" menu, select "Options". On the "Preferences" tab select the "Calendar Options..." button, then the "Add Holidays..." button on the next screen and select the United States holidays