Launching problem -- very, very, VERY sluggish

[Guest]

I have searched in vain for a solution to a vexing problem in which the
launch of Outlook (2003) now takes up to 3 minutes and nearly locks up the
machine while it's at it. I do not believe my pst file is large at all, and
I do not even use Outlook as my email client. I can tell you that when I
watch this process in task manager I can see that there are TWO entries
showing Outlook as "not responding" during much of the launch, and that CPU
usage is between 75% and 98% much of the time. And then suddenly, about 3
minutes down the road, there's only one Outlook entry and it says "running"
and CPU usage is back to 3 or 4%. FYI: The machine is a Dell with a Pentium
4 with a clock speed of 3.4Ghz and 1 gig of RAM running XP Professional
(SP2). Other apps running at launch might be Eudora, Word and maybe Skype.
That's it. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling Outlook (not the
entire Office Suite), but to no avail. Can anyone help me with this really
annoying problem? Not only is it really annoying, but I fear it masks
another problem somewhere that has yet to raise its ugly head. And I know
what your next question is: Am I running security software? The answer is
yes. I am running Norton Anti-Virus, Spy Sweeper, Windows Defender and
ad-Aware. The first 3 are on autoprotect. Norton scans weekly. So does Spy
Sweeper. Defender scans daily. And so does ad-Aware. And I have a hardware
firewall. Paranoid enough? Please, please, help.

 

[Guest]

remove the account and re-add it

 

[Guest]

Thanks, but I'm not sure what you mean, here, with "account". As I said in
my first post, I don't use Outlook for email, and I have uninstalled the app
completely and reinstalled it with no apparent effect.

 

[Pat Willener]

Reinstalling Outlook rarely fixes anything, except if Outlook itself is
damaged. What account type are you using? Is your connection to your
mail server very slow? Is your PST file very fragmented or damaged?

To remove or add your account, open the Mail applet in Control Panel.
Make sure you note down all the details before removing the account.

 

[Guest]

Once again, I do NOT use Outlook for email. (I only use the address book,
the calendar and the to-do list.) As for my PST file, I do not know how to
determine if it is fragmented or damaged, but I can say that I defrag the
system regularly. How would I determine if it is damaged? (FYI: The PST
file is only about 2mb.)

 

[Pat Willener]

To check a PST file for damages or corruption, run SCANPST against it
(while Outlook is closed). Make sure to take a backup first.