MS Outlook freezes up and won't open

Lainie · 10-12-2009, 02:18 PM

I have been using Outlook 2007 since it first came out. (With XP) We had a power failure here a couple of weeks ago. Ever since then (although I think it's only coincidence) Outlook is hanging up when I try to open it. I have to pull up the task manager, end task and open in safe mode. I un-installed and re-installed all of MS Office 2007, downloaded every update I could, checked processes and start up. I can't figure it out. The rest of Office is working just fine. Can anyone help?

Osiris · 10-12-2009, 03:19 PM

The .OST file may be corrupt.

Are you a home user or is this at work?

Lexluethar · 10-12-2009, 03:23 PM

I agree with Osiris, you probably have a corrupt .PST file (Osiris meant .PST). Do you get any messages when you try to open outlook like 'the selected groups of folders could not be open'?

Run the scan.pst on the .pst file to try and repair it. You can do a google search on where the scan.pst executable is and where the likely place of your PST file is (i don't remember off hand).

You may also want to look at the size of the PST. Since 2003 the PST files supposedly don't have a size limit, but i've found that once you get above around 1gig it corrupts extremely easily.

Osiris · 10-12-2009, 04:12 PM

I did mean .OST.....

.OST is what Outlook uses for your inbox by default, .PST is what we used for email archives.

Lexluethar · 10-12-2009, 04:20 PM

Good call, and I believe there is a scanost and scanpst executable.

Osiris · 10-12-2009, 04:30 PM

Sure is...

kimsland · 10-12-2009, 05:07 PM

Try this:

Start > Run > %programFiles%\Microsoft Office\Office12\OUTLOOK.EXE /cleansniff

If that doesn't help try: %programFiles%\Microsoft Office\Office12\OUTLOOK.EXE /cleanreminder

Or remove your profile (note: export (backup) any mail data before doing this one)
Start > Run > %CommonProgramFiles%\System\MSMAPI\1033
Locate and rename MSMAPI32.DLL to MSMAPI32.OLD

Restart

Lainie · 10-13-2009, 11:33 AM

Thank you guys so much. Yes this is at work and it has been a really big hassle. And no, I don't get any error messages or anything. It just tries to open and gets stuck. I haven't had time to go through everything you said to do yet, but will let you know how it works out.

Lexluethar · 10-13-2009, 02:19 PM

If this is at work you should contact your IT department to have them do this. They may have it setup where you won't have access to your .ost or .pst file.

Lainie · 10-13-2009, 03:57 PM

Well none of the above worked. Although I haven't tried the 3rd thing kimsland told me to do since I really wanna make that my last resort. We are a smaller company, so we don't really have an IT dept. Small network of 10. I'm usually pretty good with keeping things running smoothly, but this one has me scratching my head.

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