Outlook is REALLY slow transitioning between messages...

It takes almost 5 seconds to view a message!

[SEOMike]

Greetings. I am using outlook 2002. When transitioning between messages in the inbox or any other folder, there is a long pause while it loads the next email. My PST is only 360meg. I've tried a few things to remedy this without success. I've disabled the messenger feature, and defragged my drive. Still no luck. I'm getting my email via POP3, not an exchange server.

This is really annoying and just started recently.

[Xoc]

Have you tried all the virus/adware scans? Then have you turned off the virus scanning of your email and seen if that makes it faster?

[Easy_Coder]

Have you archived lately?

[Warren]

Have you tried disabling Microsoft Free/Busy Manager?

Also, try installing SP1. Reading through the knowledge base it addresses some minor performance issues.

[SEOMike]

Turned off scanning, no effect
Archived everything that's older than two months, no effect
Killed the integrated messenger feature, no effect
Compacted the outlook files, no effect
My outlook says that it's SP 3. Scanning revealed no further updates.

I think I'm going to have to do 1 of 3 things...

1. Scrub outlook and reinstall
2. Upgrade to 2003
3. Throw the damned thing out the window and into the lake

Thoughts? Other ideas?

[mattglet]

I would back up the PST, and reinstall Outlook.

Takes 30 mins... worth a shot.

[Warren]

Try a repair of Outlook first. I have found this fixes a few things and is quicker than an uninstall / reinstall.

[SEOMike]

HA! The detect and repair feature fixed it! Thanks for the tip!

[mattglet]

How is the detect repair triggered... is that the screen where you can add or remove components?

[UDaMan]

A utility MS provides scanpst.exe can often help in these circumstances, it repairs damaged persoanl folders. Glad to see you got it sorted SEOMIke

[SEOMike]

How is the detect repair triggered...

This feature is available in Outlook 2002 (xp) under the help menu from within the program.

[mattglet]

Thanks Mike.

[Warren]

A big tip for those mail horders out there (like me).

PSTs can store up to about 2gig. However their performance degrades as they get really big.

I run multiple PSTs to get around this.