Outlook Outlook 2003 - Can't change content of PST

[TinkerUK]

For many years I have used Outlook 2003 and have been very happy with it. Recently the email editor started to play up in that I could enter data but, going back to correct, say a spelling, would not work. I assumed at this point that having worked for years a file had been corrupted and that I could resolve this problem by reinstalling the complete Office 2003 package. This is where my problems began!

First I had trouble getting Outlook to open saying that it could not find the PST file Outlook4.PST, but did give me the option to create a new one. I can now create a PST file, say outlookxx.pst which it successfully does, but Outlook does not switch to it. Net result is that when I start up Outlook again it says it cannot find outlook4.PST again. If I now rename outllookxx.PST to be Outlook4.pst Outlook will open. I can set up an email account and send mail.

The snag now is that if I try and change anything in Outlook such as where the view panel is I can do so, but when I Open outlook again it has forgotten this change of configuration. If I try to create a new Outlook Data file I can go through all the steps but at the end it says Outlook has stopped working.

So far I have tried uninstall/reinstall of Office 2003, I have added the DisablePST key as per http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896515/EN-US and set it to 0. I have deleted the MAPISVC.INF files in system32 and common files and let them rebuild. I have also deleted the directory where, according to MS, Outlook stores the PST, OST, files.

The question is where does Outlook store details about the location of the PST file - is it in the registry (I can't find it there)? Is it in a file that does not get deleted as part of the reinstall?

Any help here guidance here would be appreciated.


Tinker UK

 

[Ian]

Welcome to the forums TinkerUK!

Have you tried deleting all of your account settings (make sure you have a backup!!!!) and re-creating the accounts one-by-one, then re-assigning the old PST file so you have your old data?

Also, after your re-install, did you add all of the service packs and patches back? I know that there are quite a lot for Office 2003, so it may take a few rounds of Windows Update to get them installed.

 

[TinkerUK]

Thanks for the reply Ian,

Emails are safe they are kept on the server, contacts are safe and it does not matter if the calendar is lost.

With regard to the recreate accounts, that is the problem, I can create email accounts but any other change that would go into the PST is rejected, ignored or causes Outlook to crash. My feeling is that the problem is down to access rights but which one is the question.

As for system build, I did rebuild the whole of Office the first time, but on the last reinstall I did not bother - the effect is the same - so why go to all the trouble to do a full reload until the core problem is resolved.

Thanks TinkerUK