Outlook Express wont open

[MattW]

My wife's Outlook Express program, which has been running problem free for
some time, suddenly will not open. She thinks she may have hard closed the
computer when it was in the middle of printing an OE attachment on an email
message....!!! Anyway... instead when you click on the OE icon you get a
window that says:

Outlook Express could not be started. Unable to open Outlook Express message
store. Contact Microsoft (0X800700E)

Next a window that says:

MSOE.DLL could not be initialzed. MAy not be installed properly.

I did a search at the MS knowledge base for the error number and although I
cant find a perfect match; it does say that the resolution for the problems
listed which have the same error number is to re-install OE.
My question is if I do that how do I save all the addresses and emails? I
thought it was in Windows some where but I'm not 100% certain. I was
thinking that if I could find them I could simply burn them to a CD,
uninstall OE, re-install OE and import the addresses and old email from the
CD.
Thanks in advance all!

 

[R. McCarty]

Outlook Express data stores are Identity based. By default these
..dbx files will be found at:
C:\Documents and Settings\'ProfileName'\Local Settings\Application Data
\Identities
There will be a Hexadecimal Identifier string for each profile. Under
the Identifier you'll find a Microsoft sub-folder and then an Outlook
Express sub-folder under that. A .dbx file that equates to each folder
will exist along with a index datastore Folders.dbx.
You need to copy the .dbx files to a alternate/backup location.

It's likely the datastores themselves are corrupted, along with the OE
application itself. Addresses are stored separately in a .Wab extension
file found at C:\Documents and Settings\'ProfileName'\Application Data
\Microsoft\Address Book

If your .dbx files are corrupted, there are tools available on the web
that /?might?/ allow you to recover some of the data.

 

[witan]

I had a similar problem when I changed my hard disk and tried to
restore OE messages from a backup on a CD. OE gave the message
"MSOE.DLL could not be initialzed..." I found later that it was because
the *.dbx files were all "Read only". After I removed this attribute,
OE started and worked normally.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Try Compact All whilst Offline.
http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideoe/files/maintain.htm#compact

If that fails try deleting folders.dbx.
http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideoe/problems/errors.htm#foldersdbx

Make sure you have the correct folders.dbx as there is one for each
identity.

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
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[MattW]

You wrote:
"Outlook Express data stores are Identity based. By default these
..dbx files will be found at:
C:\Documents and Settings\'ProfileName'\Local Settings\Application Data
\Identities"
Sorry I guess I forgot to say I'm running SP1..
Cannot find this path on XP Pro SP1 (is 'ProfileName' an SP2 subset I
wonder)
??
Thanks

 

[R. McCarty]

'ProfileName' was used as a substitution string, implying you replace
the name you login as for that string. So if you login as "Sam" then the
path would read
C:\Documents and Settings\Sam\Local Settings\Application Data...

 

[MattW]

Of course!
Thanks ever so much...will let you know how goes
Cheers

 

[MattW]

Well I tried all the recommended fixes (located dbx files and saved them to
CD to be imported after an uninstall/re-install; modified the 'IsInstalled'
number for OE from 1 to 0 as per another reg fix suggestion in order to be
able to re-install OE/ re-installed IE/OE and alas??!!!........got the same
"Outlook Express could not be started. Unable to open Outlook Express
message store. Contact Microsoft (0X800700E)"
Phew...wa-a-a-ay too time consuming for no result!
Anyway after a few hours of futility; I tried dl-ing the recommended
alternative Thunderbird which happily then imported ALL the OE adresses,
emails etc seamlessly, effortlessly, easily!!!!...my wife is joyously back
online with a working Emailer. Now I can FINALLY watch some NFL games in
peace!! LOL!
Thanks for offering help!

 

[PA Bear]

Start here: http://www.insideoe.com/problems/errors.htm#crash
--
OE6-specific newsgroup:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress
OE General newsgroup:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general

~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE/OE, Security, Shell/User)

Inside Outlook Express
http://www.insideoe.com