Russ,
First, I must tell you that I have been in the computer industry as a
software developer for the last 30 years and have been developing software
for the PC for at least 20 of them. I am extremely familiar with LAN's
and
peer to peer networks. I have done all my development in Microsoft
supported
languages.
You misunderstand. My pst files are on a network drive WHICH IS MAPPED
ONTO
MY COMPUTER. As far as my computer and ANY program running on it is
concerned, the drive is local.
I did solve the problem myself. Microsoft's error message is so inane I
am
disgusted. I have 4 pst files which I open with Outlook, two of them
were
corrupted and Outlook could not open them. WHY OH WHY can't Microsoft
just
tell me that in its error message. WHY OH WHY can't Microsoft tell me to
run
scanpst.exe in its error message. WHY OH WHY didn't Microsoft put a
shortcut
to scanpst.exe in the start menu. WHY OH WHY did Microsoft make all the
help
for Outlook available only if Outlook is running (I tried to get
information
on scanpst.exe while running Word, remember Outlook would not start, but
there was no mention of it in Office help (note, not Word help)).
Here is how I solved the problem.
First I noticed that Outlook was trying to open one of the files it said
it
could not find. The date and time stamp on the file changed everytime I
tried to start Outlook. That meant that the message I was receiving was
completely wrong.
Second, I disconnected the network drive on which 3 of the pst files are
located making them unavailable. The next time I tried to start Outlook,
instead of just giving me the uninformative error message, Outlook told me
3
times it could not find the pst files, I told it to ignore them. It then
tried to open the 4th file which was corrupt. Outlook mentioned
scanpst.exe
for the first time and then shut down.
Third, I could not find any information on scanpst.exe since Outlook would
still not stay open.
Fourth, I did a search for scanpst.exe on my C drive and found it buried
deep in C:\program files\common files\system\MSMAPI\1033.
Fifth, I ran the program against all 4 of the pst files I use and
corrected
the errors in the two corrupt ones (both had used the import feature which
apparently does not work perfectly).
Sixth, I remapped the network drive onto my computer using the same drive
letter and started Outlook. It ran perfectly. I then got into Help and
printed out everything I could find about scanpst.exe.
Seventh, I put a shortcut to scanpst.exe in my start menu in the Office
folder so I can always find it in the future.
I would suggest that Microsoft should see this response to my question.
Maybe they will figure out how to write a proper error message on
occasion.
Russ Valentine said:
Why would you suspect a registry problem? Outlook has never supported
using
data over a network.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;297019
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
David Sands said:
Outlook has stopped working. It will not start on my machine. The
message I
get is:
"Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Unable to open the Outlook
window.
The set of folders could not be opened. The server is not available.
Contact your administrator if this condition persists."
My network is a peer to peer LAN with no server. The folders are on a
networked drive which Windows Explorer can see. The drive is mapped on
my
computer. Other computers running Outlook can open the folders just
fine.
I think this is a registry problem but do not know how to fix it. I
have
run Registry Fix V7.0 until there are no registry errors but that did
not
fix
the problem.
