Cannot Open Outlook Troubleshooting Tips

If you cannot open Outlook for one reason or another, read more on causes and fixes.

Outlook is generally pretty stable, but like any piece of software it does experience problems from time to time, what makes it worse is it actually stores our files unlike other applications such as Word or Excel.

Error Checking
If you cannot open Outlook after a crash, don’t be in too much of a hurry for it to actually load, Microsoft built in error checking, if you have lots of emails it might take anything up to 10 minutes to complete this error checking, if unsure check task manager or look at the computers hard drive light for system activity.

Personal Folders
If you cannot launch Outlook you may need to run a repair on any personal folders before launching Outlook, to do this make sure Outlook is not running, go to task manager to check this as sometimes it can run in the background. If running end the process.

Now go to Control Panel – Mail – Data Files and look for the location of your data file, generally it will be similar to C:\Documents and Settings\profile name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst

Now we need to run an application called SCANPST.EXE

This comes included with Office.

For Office 2007 can be found in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12. The location may vary with other versions of Office.

This application will run a scan and repair over PST files.

Launch SCANPST.EXE and point it at the location of your personal folder, as above now Start the scan.

First it will analyze the file and inform you of any errors, then you will be able to repair them and backup the PST file to be on the safe side.

Application Problems
When we cannot open Outlook sometimes the issue revolves around a problem with Outlook itself rather than the data files as above, luckily Microsoft gives us several ways to resolve this issues.

1. Hold down the CTRL key and launch Outlook, you will be asked if you want to start in Safe Mode, select yes and hopefully it will allow you to open the Outlook.

Now go to the Help menu and select Office diagnostics, this can take a while as it runs comprehensive tests to help resolve most issues.

2. If you are still cannot open Outlook, running an Office repair is a pain free fix. This can be run from Control Panel - Add/Remove programs (Windows XP) or Control Panel – Programs and Features – then just select Change when you see the Office installation – select the Repair option (generally Office will have cached all of the installation files on your hard drive, but if not you will need the Office installation disk)

OST / Offline Folders
If using a corporate setup with an Exchange server you may well have Offline storage setup, this allows you to see all of your email locally, which is great if you are not always connected to the network or you have a slow network connection

If you’re on this type of setup and cannot open Outlook the issue could well be a corrupt OST or offline folder, there are two ways I generally repair this type of problem.

The first method is to run the OST repair tool that comes with Office, this is located in the same location as the PST repair tool, then point it at the OST or Offline folder which is generally in the same location as the PST or personal folders (C:\Documents and Settings\profile name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook)

If this fails and you still cannot open Outlook the second OST fix involves creating a new OST file

To do this go to Control Panel – Mail – Email Accounts – double click on your exchange profile – More Settings – Advanced tab – Offline Folders settings and then change the name of the current OST file.

You will then receive a message stating that the OST file cannot be found and would you like to create it, select Yes and try your Outlook again.

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