Internet Explorer 7, Outlook 2007, Windows RSS Platform

I do not know everything about this topic, but here are some of my thoughts from my experiences. I really enjoy listening to Hansel Minutes and .NET Rocks! on my Zune as I code or commute. The ability to download enclosures from an RSS feed is great and can make keeping the task of keeping my Zune synced up with the latest episodes a breeze. You can configure IE 7 to download enclosures automatically.

Configure IE 7 Feed Enclosure Downloads
1. Subscribe to a feed that offers enclosures in IE 7, like .NET Rocks!:
http://www.pwop.com/feed.aspx?show=dotnetrocks&filetype=master
2. Open the Favorites Center and click on the Feeds tab.
3. Right-click on the feed that you subscribed to in the first step and click on the "Properties..." menu option.
4. Click on the "Automatically download attached files".
5. Click on the OK button.

The feed's enclosures will be automatically downloaded the next time that the feed is checked. The following directories are where the feeds and enclosures are stored on Windows Vista.

Feeds (.feed-ms)
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Feeds

Enclosures
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Enclosure\{76E975B3-71EA-4820-85D6-BB6D878879E3}

I do not like that the enclosures are stored in the "Temporary Internet Files" directory and that this location is not configurable. The enclosure files are not deleted when you use the "Delete Browsing History" dialog to delete all browsing history. So you could configure your Zune to sync files with any the Enclosure directory or a specific GUID enclosure directory. You can find the enclosure directory name for a specific feed by clicking on the "View Files" button next to the "Automatically download attached files" checkbox described in step 4 (configuring feed enclosure downloads). I know that I could write a FileSystemWatcher or use the COM object provided by the Windows RSS Platform to setup events to monitor the downloading of enclosures. This seems like a lot of work for something that in my opinion should be configurable in the feeds properties dialog. I know that you can use the Outlook 2007 "Sync RSS Feeds to the Common Feed List" option and also enable the downloading of enclosures. The enclosures downloaded in Outlook 2007 are stored in a .PST file. I have also read about issues with very large personal folder files in Outlook 2007 where the size is greater than 2GB in size. The .PST file for a feed like .NET Rocks! would easily be larger than 2GB and could possibly cause performance issues in Outlook 2007. It would have been nice if IE7 and Outlook 2007 would have both used the same store instead of smoke and mirrors to "sync" the feeds.

Conclusion
I like the ability to use IE7 and Outlook 2007 to manage my RSS subscriptions, since I already use both of those applications daily. I am not a huge fan of installing other software that is only going to bloat my system, especially those that need to auto start or run as services and will consume extra memory or CPU resources that I would rather leave for more productive work. The only complaint that I have currently with either is how enclosures are handled, but IE7 does offer a way for me to get at the enclosures. I have more thoughts on this subject and will post more information about those thoughts as I have time.

Alternatives
There are really good RSS readers that allow you to configure the directory that enclosures should be downloaded into like RSS Bandit and Attensa.