Outlook 2000 messages won't delete

[Baflme]

Outlook 2000 will no longer delete messages - I get an interfacing error and
am told to restart Outlook but this has not helped. I'm drowning. Thanks
for any assistance. Rhonda

 

[K. Orland]

Are you using a PST? If you are, is it over the size limit?

 

[bren]

Are you using a PST? If you are, is it over the size limit?

 

[bren]

What is a PST?

Are you using a PST? If you are, is it over the size limit?

 

[K. Orland]

A PST is the Outlook data file that holds your emails, calendar entries,
contacts, etc. if you're not connecting to an Exchange server (the Microsoft
email server used in a business environment). If you connect to an ISP to
pull your email, you likely use a PST. The maximum size for a PST in your
version of Outlook is 2 GB but it can become a problem around 1.6 GB.
If you unhide all your hidden folders and files (use Windows Explorer to do
this) and enable your view of known file types, you can do a search for your
PST and find out the size.
If this isn't your situation, please advise.

 

[bren]

I'm now on cable with roadrunner, but I still get my mail from netzero.net;
so I am using a PST. I still want to know what the abbrev stands for.

Since the last Win Updates, I can't even get Outlook 2000 to open up. I
have to use ctrl, alt, delete to get it off my screen. I am at my wits end
not being able to delete anything or make any changes to my contacts, inbox,
etc. I have detected and repaired and restarted umpteen times to no avail.
Whenever I would do anything the msg would open up saying there was an
unknown error with the msg interface and to restart Outlook, but it doesn't
work--now I can't even open Outlook up. This started with the Nov Win
Updates.

 

[K. Orland]

PST stands for Personal STore. I would recommend creating a new Outlook
profile to see if that helps. Once it's created, use File > Open to browse to
your PST file and open it.

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

 

[K. Orland]

You should still check the size of your PST file to make sure it's not too
large.
You also may have corruption in your PST, run scanpst.exe against it. Just
do a file/folder search for it, double-click it, and follow the instructions.
If it finds any errors, scan again when it's done. Keep scanning until it
goes through an entire scan without finding errors. Then open Outlook again.

 

[bren]

Kathleen, I have been using Outlook for more than 3 yrs, and I never deleted
any of my sent items--so it's huge, but I can't check it or anything else
since Outlook freezes up now when I try to open it. I have to tell the task
mgr to end the program. I am feeling very ignorant-- is there anything I can
do at this point? Also I had about 300 e-mails in my inbox. I sent them all
to a folder in my documents so that I could open them and read them. They
wouldn't delete, but when I sent them elsewhere, the number for the # of
e-mails in the inbox went down to 148 even though they were still in the
inbox (not being able to delete them), but then I could no longer even send
them elsewhere.

 

[K. Orland]

To check the size of your PST, it's not necessary to open Outlook. In Windows
Explorer, enable your view of known file types and at the same time unhide
hidden files and folders. Then do a search for *.pst. Two should come up, an
archive.pst and outlook.pst (those are the default names but they may have
been renamed). The outlook.pst file is the one you're interested in. Check
the size. If you're viewing details, it should tell you. If not, right-click
on it and scroll to properties.

You also want to run a repair on your PST. The tool is called scanpst.exe.
Do a search for that, double-click it, and follow the directions. It will ask
you to browse to your PST file so make note of the location. You need to do
this with Outlook closed.