In previous versions of Outlook, you could manually mark messages as Read or Unread. Although you can still do this in Outlook 2003 by right-clicking your messages, you can also configure your Outlook 2003 so messages remain Unread unless you open them -- even if you have the Reading Pane enabled and you read messages by cycling through them in your inbox.

To configure this option, open Outlook and go to Tools, Options. Click on the Other tab and then click the Reading Pane button. Uncheck the box "Mark item as read when selection changes." If you check the box "Mark item as read when viewed in Reading Pane" and configure a time -- for example, 60 seconds -- the message will remain marked Unread for up to 60 seconds even if the message is selected.

To configure Outlook so the messages remain Unread indefinitely, even if you change your selection or leave the message selected, uncheck both these boxes in the Reading Pane dialog box: "Mark item as read when viewed in the Reading Pane" and "Mark item as read when selection changes."