My Outlook won't open

[tigger]

My Outlook has died and I can't get the thing to open, tried doing a repair, deleted office & re-installed, run full scan disk & defrag with no luck, any ideas as I'm lost the next option is format disk and put XP on, but I don't really want to go down that road

Cheers

[ncsuk]

You getting any error messages?

[tigger]

Nope it just hangs on the opening window, even when you do ctrl+alt+delete No error message comes up

[ncsuk]

Hummm I had the same problem. I just deleted and reinstalled it. I think there was an error with a file.

Look in

C:\Documents and Settings\Your-User\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

There should be 2 files in there. One of them should be 2-6kb. Try moving it out the folder (BACK IT UP) and then uninstall and resinstall

[Receptional Andy]

Are you having problems opening any other M$ OFfice programs? Excel, for example.

[tigger]

Nope fine, I'm glad I'm not the only person struggling with this, everything is running fine on the PC

[Receptional Andy]

Have you tried leaving Outlook for ages to see if it starts up eventually? If you have lots of filter rules and suchlike Outlook can sometimes be incredibly slow to start (several minutes). If there's no error, then it would seem that Outlook thinks it's starting correctly. There are lots of reasons why Outlook won't start but the vast majority will give you an error of some kind.

[Receptional Andy]

Have you tried Outlook safe mode?

1. Click on Start ¦ Run.

2. Type outlook /safe

3. Click on OK.

[dcheney]

Can you open the address book directly? If not then probably a corrupted address book file.

[tigger]

Ok tried downloading both service packs made no difference, I'll try what you said Andy as I'm going to have lunch so if its going to open I would have thought that would give it enough time, this is now really getting my T*** :(

[tigger]

Ok, it opened after a while but locked up, doing ctrl+alt give an error message not responding

Next?

[Woz]

Look for your data files ending in .pst and back them up. Then reinstall and put your datafiles back in their original position and try it. Crossing all fingers of course.

Onya
Woz

[ncsuk]

Thats what I said ages ago. I did it yesterday and it started working again. Same problem I think as I had.

[tigger]

Well I don't know why but it's working now, very odd I don't know if it's because the service packs and they didn't kick in straight away

Thank you very much for all your help gents

[ncsuk]

Make sure you dont have too many unread messages etc because it can clogg up MO.

[tigger]

Just finished deleting 400 spam emails over the last 3 days and I've deleted just about anything that I don't need, you know those emails you keep Just-in-case :)

[Marcia]

I couldn't open Outlook because there was just too much mail in it. We installed more memory, it opened and we had to archive most of what was in there.

It's a resource hog to begin with, and there just wasn't enough RAM to open it.

[chris_f]

Tigger,

Your pst file isn't on a network drive is it. I had this problem a while back. What I did was move it locally and then set up a batch file to run at night which maps a drive to the server and copies the pst so it's backed up.

Chris.

[tigger]

I hear what your saying M, I did have quite a few emails held in various folders, but I've deleted them now as I can't remember the last time I looked at them

Everything is help on my PC Chris

I'm still thinking about upgrading to XP as I'm running on ME on this machine and it does seem a little slow, considering I’m using a P4 with loads of 516ram

[ncsuk]

Just goto win 2k, I absolutly despise XP and im using it on this machine.

I've had more problems and slowness with XP that I ever thought possible.

[Visit Thailand]

Tigger after reading your first post I imediately made another back up of outlook. I cannot afford to lose all the data. Make sure you get the simple backup add on from microsoft, it make backing up so easy.

[tigger]

It’s amazing the moment someone’s mentions they have system problems everyone grabs for the back up, fortunately last year I learnt my lesson when my hard drive gave up so I back up everyday including outlook

And just in case I've just backup again :)