I am so frustrated
I just reinstalled office 2003 on a new laptop, and i can confirm 100% that on my old laptop running 2003 (last week!) that I had three 'columns' or 'panes' in my main inbox view that did exactly what everyone here is looking for: the left hand column contained folders/inbox etc, the middle wide column/frame contained the email folder inbox, and the right column contained the "taskpad" view (e.g. a mini calendar and the task list). However, on the new laptop, I only have the normal inbox view without a taskpad/mini calendar on the right and I can't get it back.
Despite many internet experts on message boards like this claiming that outlook 2007 was the first to have such a taskpad facility from the inbox, This is definitely a view I had in office 2000, and again in 2003 - I only lost it when I loaded 2003 again on this new laptop
I can't actually think of any more useful view than this one - calendar, tasks and emails all in one view. And for this reason I know for a fact I am not imagining that only last week this is the view I had in 2003. I'm not a super user of MS office, so there is no way i would have managed to have created that view myself using tricks of the trade - it must have been a default view.
Am so angry as I didnt realise how useful this view was until I lost it!