MS Office Oulook Has Stopped Working

[Dr Dave]

Windows Vista Ultimate, Office 2003, running on Exchange. Get the error
about Outlook closing when trying to open or create a calendar item, a
contact, or a task. Emails open fine. One other user with the same
environment does not have any problems at all.

Upgraded to Office 2007 and the error got worse; could not create or open
emails either. Have created new profiles, run the ost and pst repairs,
turned off UAC. All available updates have been installed.

No toolbars installed, disabled anti-virus and anti-spyware did not stop the
issue. Ran in safe mode and everything works as designed. Disabled all
add-ins and that did not fix the problem. The user can log in from any other
computer and does not have any problems with Outlook.

 

[VanguardLH]

Windows Vista Ultimate, Office 2003, running on Exchange. Get the error
about Outlook closing when trying to open or create a calendar item, a
contact, or a task. Emails open fine. One other user with the same
environment does not have any problems at all.

Upgraded to Office 2007 and the error got worse; could not create or open
emails either. Have created new profiles, run the ost and pst repairs,
turned off UAC. All available updates have been installed.

No toolbars installed, disabled anti-virus and anti-spyware did not stop the
issue. Ran in safe mode and everything works as designed. Disabled all
add-ins and that did not fix the problem. The user can log in from any other
computer and does not have any problems with Outlook.

Outlook's safe mode = Do not load add-ons. Extensions not honored.
All add-ons disabled = Do not load add-ons. Extensions are honored.

Running Outlook in its safe mode disables both add-ons and extensions.
Disabling all add-ons and starting Outlook in its normal mode only
disables those add-ons, not the extensions (COM add-ons); see
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/286408, section titled "There are four
main types of extensions". I've seen some COM add-ons that do not get
listed in the list shown inside of Outlook so you cannot disable them
from inside Outlook. For example, when the AttachmentOptions extension
from Ken Slovak (http://www.slovaktech.com/attachmentoptions.htm) is
installed, you will not see it under the listings for Add-Ins Manager or
the COM Add-ins.

Start looking in the Add/Remove Program applet for anything that
modifies the behavior of Outlook or adds any functionality to Outlook.

 

[K. Orland]

If the problem doesn't follow the user to another PC, check that PC to see if
there are Add Ins installed that may interfere with the workings of Outlook.
You can start Outlook in safe mode to accomplish that:

Start > Run > outlook.exe /safe

You can also delete and recreate the user's Outlook profile in case that's
what is corrupted:

http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/newprofile.htm