Outlook 2007 display scrambled

[Ken Elmy]

Ever since I switched over to Vista and Outlook 2007 if I leave Outlook up
and running overnight 99.9% of the time the display gets scrambled and I
have to <ATL> <F4> to close it. Most of the graphic elements disappear and
the text elements get pushed up to the left of the window (i.e. the list of
items in my inbox). It's like all of it's internal mechanisms for
measurement go berzerk. After closing and reopening it is fine except for
the fact that it complains that the data file was shut down dirty and thay
it has to perform a check.

I never have any problems with it throughout the day. It's only when I leave
it up overnight. The one time I can remember it actually surviving the night
is when I remote desktop'ed to the PC from home during the evening.

I've also tried disabling the screen saver, leaving Outlook maximized,
minimized, etc.

I'm using all of the latest Outlook patches, Vista patches, and video
drivers. I am running the Aero interface if that makes a difference. I do
not have any add-ins installed in Outlook. I don't have any scheduled tasks
or proccesses other than Windows Update and the stuff running in the Sidebar
that I can think of that would mess with the gui.

Anyone else ever experience this?

 

[Ken Elmy]

I think I just got a clue. I stumbled on this blog posting while looking for
sidebar gategets for Outlook. While I haven't confimed that disabling the
Outlook gadgets fixs the problem his description of the problem is dead-on.
I too have been running the appointments gadget from day-one.

Blog link:
http://weblogs.asp.net/kdente/archive/2007/03/14/beware-the-outlook-vista-sidebar-gadgets.aspx

Applicable Blog text:
"Ever since upgrading to Vista and Office 2007, I've had a really annoying
problem with Outlook 2007. After running for a couple days, the UI would
lose the ability to repaint itself correctly. It would glitch out and start
drawing large blank regions or garbage. It smacked of a resource leak, but
caused by what? I tried everything I could think of - upgrading the video
drivers, disabling add-ins...nothing fixed the problem.
Finally one day I clued into something - I've been running the Outlook
Appointments Sidebar Gadget for almost as long as I've been running Outlook
2007, but hadn't thought to try disabling it. Once I did, bingo, no more
problems. My sources at Microsoft (actually, my sources sources) confirmed
that this is actually a bug in Vista that's being triggered by the gadget.
Apparently the gadget's author is working to mitigate the problem. "

-- Kevin Dente