If I delete a meeting request from my Sent Items folder, will Microsoft Outlook delete the appointment from my calendar?

No; deleting a meeting request that you created and sent won t purge the corresponding appointment. Think about it: If Outlook worked that way, your Calendar folder would lose appointments every time Outlook ran AutoArchive.

You do need to be careful about deleting requests in your Inbox, especially if you re working with a delegate. You might need to open requests so Outlook can process them. Outlook uses these requests to manage appointments in your Calendar folder. For best results, use Outlook 2003 with Service Pack 2 (SP2) applied. For more information on the changes to calendar processing that Microsoft made in SP2, see Should You Deploy Office 2003 SP2, InstantDoc ID 48593.