Outlook 2003 will not open for 1 of 4 users on XP

[Tag]

In trying to figure out how my wife will connect to her
new company's webmail account, I mistakenly filled in the
webmail server name in response to the wizard that asks
for your e-mail account information when you first start
up Outlook. Now I cannot open Outlook in that profile at
all.

The specifics are as follows:

1. Outlook opens on this one XP machine for all users (4)
except my wife,where I apparently messed up the
configuration.
2. For my wife's user profile, when I try to open
Outlook I get, in order, a) the message "Configuring
Outlook Accounts, Creating Welcome Message." b) "The
connection to Microsoft Exchange Server is unavailable.
Outlook must be online or connected to complete the
action." c) When I select "OK", a dialog box appears
that gives me an opportunity to correct the server
address and user name. I no longer want to use Outlook
for this task since we have determined that she will
access webmail through the browser.
3. If I select "Check names" in this dialog box, I get
the message "The name could not be resolved. The
connection to Microsoft Exchange Server is unavailable.
Outlook must be online or connected to complete the
action."
4. When I select "OK", I get the message "Unable to
open your default e-mail folders. The file C:\Documents
and Settings\(user name)\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\Outlook\outlook.ost is not an offline
folder file." Clicking OK in that message closes the
program and all of the error messages and dialog boxes.

Message #4 is the most tantalizing: I thought it would
give me a pointer to the configuration file that I could
delete and start over. I deleted "outlook.ost"
and "extend.dat." When I retried opening Outlook, I got
the same sequence of error messages. The files that I
deleted were recreated by the act of opening the program.

How can I get Outlook to open and stay open?

Thank you for your help.

 

[RMK]

It seems when you tried to setup your wife's account, in the portion
of the configuration wizard which determine's the type of account you
selected connect by exchange server. If you are trying to connect via
a web based server then you probably need to connect via a POP3 mail
server.
The easist way is to delete your wife's profile and start again.
Do this by accesing Outlook. Then choose Tools then Email accounts
from the menu bar.
Next select change existing account then select your wife's profile
from the list and choose remove.
To add a new account select add, then follow the onscreen
instructions. If you are connecting to a webmail server. You will need
the names of the POP3 (incoming mail) and SMTP (outgoing mail) servers
you are trying to connect to.

 

[Tag Van Winkle]

RMK, thank you for your response. I tried your
suggestion but bumped into a problem. I cannot open
Outlook in my wife's account. It gives me the error
messages and then shuts down so I cannot delete the
profile in the normal way. When I attempt the
instructions that you gave me from the "administrator
account, there are no e-mail accounts listed.

Any ideas?

Thank for the response.