Outlook Weird Behavior

[Rocky Lane]

After I start Office Professional 2003 Outlook, check messages and then close
Ouitlook, a background invsible program keeps running that repeatedly grabs
the focus away from anything else. If I try to start an application by
clicking on the Start button, the start menu pops up but then immediately
disappears. If a start an application from an icon on my desktop, the
application starts but you can see the application windoww gaining and losing
focus every 2 seconds. Typing in Word for example is impossible with losing
focus constantly. This situation does NOT occur if I run any other Office
application, only if I run Outlook.

The only way I have found to solve the problem is to reboot and NOT run
Outlook.

Has anyone else experienced this odd behavior?

I have a current up-to-date Vista Ulitmate system. This problem did not
occur with my previous Windows XP Professional system.

Thanks.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

After I start Office Professional 2003 Outlook, check messages and then
close
Ouitlook, a background invsible program keeps running that repeatedly grabs
the focus away from anything else. If I try to start an application by
clicking on the Start button, the start menu pops up but then immediately
disappears. If a start an application from an icon on my desktop, the
application starts but you can see the application windoww gaining and
losing
focus every 2 seconds. Typing in Word for example is impossible with losing
focus constantly. This situation does NOT occur if I run any other Office
application, only if I run Outlook.

In the Task Manager, examine the Processes tab and see if OUTLOOK.EXE still
appears. If so, write back.

 

[Rocky Lane]

Thanks for responding to my situation Brian.

Yes, even after I close the Outlook application, Task Manager says
Outlook.exe is still running.

Should I be closing Outlook in a different way?

Rocky

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

Yes, even after I close the Outlook application, Task Manager says
Outlook.exe is still running.

This is an indication that you have a misbehaving add-in or some other
application that is keeping Outlook open, such as a PDA's sync software. See
if this helps:
http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/outlookdoesntclose.htm

 

[Rocky Lane]

Followed the article's advice but found no add-ins with Outlook 2003. The
only thing mentioned that might be of concern is virus scanners. I have the
free AVG 8.x running on my system.

I suspect it might be one of the dozens of startup programs and services
that Vista allows to run. I use a utility, Autoruns, to find and eliminate as
many of these as possible but there are still a lot there the system needs-
i.e. video card, sound card, Logitech stuff, Sun Java stuff etc.

Now that I know I can just end the Outlook.exe process, at least I won't
have to reboot anymore to get rid of this annoying problem. I'm just too lazy
to junk Outlook and get a "real " email program. Been using it ever since it
first came out.

Thanks Brian for all your help.

 

[Pat Willener]

Is Outlook perhaps residing in your systray (the notification area on
the lower-right)? If so, you did not exit Outlook, but close it to the
systray only.

There is an option to enable/disable this behavior.

 

[Rocky Lane]

Thanks Pat.

No, my Outlook does NOT use the System Tray feature. But after reading your
reply, I did searches on this and found tons of info about Outlook and this
System Tray feature. One of the things I found was a reply on the
TechRepublic site that talks about Outlook NOT shutting down completely when
you close it because your anti-virus software is still checking the emails
that got downloaded when you opened Outlook. That's why Outlook.exe is still
running under processes in Task Manager but no icons for Outlook are in the
Task Bar or System Tray. When the anti-virus gets finished, it does NOT
terminate the Outlook.exe process. This causes my original problem of losing
window focus because I believe it keeps checking the email server every few
seconds for new email.

The solution seems to be to let Outlook run until the anti-virus finishes
checking your new emails BEFORE closing Outlook. Then it correctly terminates
the Outlook.exe process when you close Outlook and no more losing Windows
focus.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

One of the things I found was a reply on the
TechRepublic site that talks about Outlook NOT shutting down completely when
you close it because your anti-virus software is still checking the emails
that got downloaded when you opened Outlook.

There's no reason to scan incoming messages so you should uninstall AVG and
reinstall it without the E-mail scanning feature. AVG shouldn't interfere
with closing Outlook even if it does include the PST in its scan. It never
does for me.