"Ending Program" error when shut down PC

[George]

Am using Outlook 2002 with all new updates as far as I know, on a WinXP-pro
PC.

Often, when I shut down the PC (Start> Turn-off > Turn-off) a window comes
up with a title in the top blue bar of "End Program - OUTLOOK.EXE" and it
shows a progress bar while saying "Ending Program...Please wait. (If I
don't click the End Now button, the PC won't shut down).

By the way, if I do alt/control/del, there will be several OUTLOOK.EXE
running under the Processes tab.

Is this a bug? Anyone got a fix for this?

 

[George]

There's nothing like responding to your own post, but.... in case it will
help someone in the future...it looks like the problem is as follows.

The "Ending Program...Please wait" problem seems to be because OUTLOOK.EXE
is still running in the background, even if it appears nothing but the
desktop is active. In WinXP-pro, you can see this in Alt-Cntl-Del by
looking under the Processes tab (not the Applications tab).

In my case, it appears it may be tied to ACT! 2000 (aka ACT 5.0), which is
"integrated" with Outlook 2002. It appears that ACT! launches OUTLOOK.EXE
in the background to enable this integration.

In may case, when ACT! seemed to freeze or have other problems, I used
Alt-Cntl-Del to shut it down. Problem is, it appears that ACT! was shut
down but Outlook was left running...since it would still be in the Processes
tab after a manual shutdown of ACT!.

Apparently, if OUTLOOK.EXE is running, the PC won't shut down unless OUTLOOK
is stopped, no matter how it got started to begin with, no matter whether
you see it or you don't, on the monitor. You can hit End Task--either in
the error window while trying to shut down, or after checking the Processes
tab before shutdown and selecting OUTLOOK.EXE--and that seems to take care
of shutting down OUTLOOK.EXE, and lets the PC finish shutting down.

Bottom line, if something causes OUTLOOK.EXE to launch and be running, even
if you can't see it, it looks like the PC can't be shut down until Outlook
is closed first.