Yes that did it. For anyone who is interested here is tested code to open the Outlook Inbox folder and print out info from the messages. The object model reference is here under the "reference" link on the left pane.

Steve

#use strict;
use Win32::OLE;
use Win32::OLE::Variant;
use Win32::OLE::Const 'Microsoft Outlook';

my $mailboxname = "Mailbox - Steve";
my $Outlook;

# set up OLE

eval {$Outlook = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject('Outlook.Application')}; 
die "Outlook not installed" if $@; 
unless (defined $Outlook) { 
    $Outlook = Win32::OLE->new('Outlook.Application', sub {$_[0]->Quit
+;}) or die "Can't start Outlook"; 
} 
my $ol = Win32::OLE::Const->Load($Outlook);
my $namespace = $Outlook->GetNamespace("MAPI");
my $Folder = $namespace->Folders($mailboxname)->Folders('Inbox') || di
+e "Can't open folder\n";
my $n = $Folder->Items->Count;

# process messages

print "Processing $n messages\n\n";
for my $i (1..$n) {
    print "Message $i ";
    my $msg = $Folder->Items($i);
    my $time = Win32::OLE::Variant->new(VT_DATE,$msg->CreationTime);
    print "From: ",$msg->SenderName,"\n";
    print "Date: ",$time,"\n";
    print "Subj: ",$msg->Subject,"\n";
    print "Topic: ",$msg->ConversationTopic,"\n";
    print "\n";
}
undef $Outlook;
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