Problem starting Outlook 2002

  • Thread starter Thread starter Night Owl
  • Start date Start date
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Night Owl

Very recently (after messing about with RealOne - the biggest pile of c**p
I've ever known) Outlook 2002 (10.4712.4219) SP-2 won't always start
properly.

I have uninstalled it using Control Panel, and then reinstalling it, but the
error still happens. The program won't start properly and offers to send
the error to Microsoft with an option to restart Outlook. After this has
happened a couple of times, it then offers to restart in Safe Mode (similiar
to KB article 298838 which identifies the symptoms) but it won't. It just
loops through the 'Send error details to Microsoft' every time it tries to
start, unless I uncheck the 'Restart Outlook' option, however the error
occurs if I try to restart Outlook afterwards - almost every time.

One other thing, I usually get Outlook to start when I start the computer
(shortcut in the Startup folder), and the error also seems to happen when
Outlook automatically checks for new messages (currently set to every 11
minutes)

What I was thinking of doing, if there isn't an easy solution to the
problem, is uninstall Outlook again, and delete all the Outlook related
registry keys (or uninstall Office completely and do the same), but I'm not
too sure if this is a good idea.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Pete
 
You may have a corrupted outcmd.dat file. This is the file that stores your
toolbar customizations, and when it becomes corrupted (a common occurrence),
Outlook can't use it at startup to build your toolbars, thus causing
hangups. Try renaming or deleting your outcmd.dat file while Outlook is
closed. Renaming it might be the best idea if you have a lot of
customizations that you'd prefer not to lose; that way if renaming the file
doesn't solve your problem, you may be able to restore it later when you do
get Outlook working properly again.

Note: If you're using Windows 2000 or XP, you'll need to search in hidden
and system folders to find the outcmd.dat file.

--
Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please
reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***


In
 
Hi Jocelyn,
I tried your suggestion, but even after deleting the file, nothing changed.

I have now completely uninstalled Office XP, deleted all the files I could
find that related to Office in both Explorer and the Registry, but after
reinstalling Office XP, Outlook came up with the same error straight away!

The funny thing is I've changed the location of my *.pst file to a separate
partition, yet when I re-installed, it found that file instead of opening a
new one. Do you think my *.pst file is corrupt?

Peter
 
Hi again,

I've just had a look at my outlook.pst file, and although the information
relating to the file in Explorer looks OK, when I click on the propertis of
the file (i.e. right click) the date is shown like this...

2003Äê11ÔÂ29ÈÕ, 13:19:11

....and worse still, EVERY file on my PC is doing the same. I've been zapped
by a virus, haven't I?

Pete
 
Hmmm...that is strange. It certainly couldn't hurt to scan your machine for
viruses. You could also try running the Inbox Repair Tool against your .PST
file to see if it finds any errors. Search your hard drive for a file
called scanpst.exe and run it. (Note -- if your .PST file is anywhere near
2GB in size, don't run the Inbox Repair Tool just yet...post back for
different instructions.)

--
Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please
reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***


In
 
jocelyn! You were asked about a question starting outlook some time ago.
Iread the correspondence but was not able to find a solution. I now
have the same problem. Did you figure out how to solve this problem?
 
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