I had 12 SMS messages in my inbox. I did a batch delete of those messages but the SMS counter on the Home Screen is stuck at 12. I am not sure how to do a hard reset which seems like the only way to get this cleared up. Any ideas?

Turn off your phone, then Hold the Blue Button and the Power button. Then follow the onscreen instructions.

This will reset your phone to factory settings, so you'll lose everything you've placed on your phone.

Also, to avoid having outlook deleting your contact info, delete the partnership in activesync.

HTH

If I do a hard reset, when I startup the phone again and do a Sync, won't that just put everything back on the phone from Outlook?

It usually does with no problem, you will set up a new partnership and you will select the sync options you want and then it will sync.

Check an earlier message in this forum about the SMS counter; I had a similar problem and learned there is a file you can delete that will reset the message counter, but will also erase all messages. Worked fine for me.