Outlook won’t close (2003)

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I”ve just upgraded to Office 2003 from XP and now Outlook won’t close. It reduces to an icon on the taskbar. When I click on it I get the message that Outlook is not responding and I have to close it with the Task Manager before I can open it again. I know this is an old problem that could occur with earlier versions of Outlook, but I have not encountered it before. I uninstalled all my add-ins, uninstalled Office 2003 and deleted any files remaining in the Office11 folder. I then reinstalled Office 2003 but that made no difference; Outlook still won’t close. Clearly, uninstalling Office did not remove all registry entries, as Word found normal.dot with no problem and Outlook found my .pst file without my having to tell it where to look. Also, I did not have to activate Office again. I turned off Norton Antivirus Auto-Protect, but did not remove it as that requires removing the whole SystemWorks suite.

Anyone got any ideas about this? Is Norton the likely culprit?

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Do you have a PDA attached? If so these will prevent Outlook from closing.

Also if you try and open Outlook more than once, it will cause this problem.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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No PDA and only one instance of Outlook. My setup is identical to what I had for Outlook 2002, which did not have this problem.

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No PDA and only one instance of Outlook. My setup is identical to what I had for Outlook 2002, which did not have this problem.

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Do you have a PDA attached? If so these will prevent Outlook from closing.

Also if you try and open Outlook more than once, it will cause this problem.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Hi Andrew

Try running “Detect and Repair” and select the options to restore shortcuts and discard customizations.

Another option to look at is adjusting the interval that Outlook schedules a send/receive. To do this select Tools>Options and on the mail setup tab click send/receive.

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I ran detect and repair before I uninstalled and reinstalled Office 2003. I’ve got to think it’s something to do with Norton AntiVirus. I’m going to take that out of the equation before I try anything else.

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I have been running Norton’s AV for many years, including since I installed Office 2003 including a beta version and have NOT had this problem.
If there is a “Fax” program running it will also keep Out running in the background.

Look in the “Task Manager” and see what is running. There are a LOT of programs that like to access the Outlook program. Anyting with a calendar with reminders will want to.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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I removed all traces of Norton and that didn’t help. I agree with you that it was an unlikely culprit; Symantec has always been very good at keeping their stuff compatible but I didn’t know what else to try. As I said before, I did not have this problem with Outlook XP or any previous version, so I just wondered if Symantec had dropped the ball.

I am stumped. My main problem is that uninstalling and reinstalling does not fix the problem. Clearly, uninstalling does not completely remove everything and what I would really like to know is how to completely clean out all traces of Office without reformatting and reinstalling everything.

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Have you run scanpst on your PST file(s)? If you are maintaining the same PST(s) from install to reinstall and the problem isn’t corrected, it’s possible that a corrupt item is causing problems when Outlook tries to close the PST. You might consider creating a new PST and start migrating your old PST items over in phases to see if you can isolate the item.

Also, after you uninstall Outlook or whatever, run something like RegSeeker to clean out all orphaned Registry entries.

Is this a standalone machine, not on Exchange Server?

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This is a standalone system, not attached to an Exchange server. I believe scanpst is an Exchange utility. There’s no such application on my system. Earlier versions of Outlook had the ‘Inbox Repair Tool’, but that seems to have disappeared from the latest version.

I am using Norton One-button checkup to clean up the Registry. It runs every night, so there should be no orphaned registry entries. I guess I’ll have to try exporting everything to a new .pst file.

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Andrew, I still have ‘scanpst.exe’ (a.k.a. the Inbox Repair Tool) in my Office 2003; it installed in:

C:Program FilesCommon FilesSystemMSMAPI1033

It’s not Exchange only, it’s specifically intended for PST files. If you can find it, run it on your PST. You may need to search ‘Hidden Folders and Files’ to find ‘scanpst.exe’.

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OK, I found scanpst. I ran it and that made matters worse. It found some errors and after fixing them Outlook wouldn’t open. Outlook started and then immediately shut down. I replaced the ‘repaired’ pst with the backup and now I’m back where I started.

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Urk. That wasn’t supposed to happen. But it think it is evidence that your problem is the PST. How big is your PST? At this point I’d create new PST and migrate data from the old one if you can.

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Urk. That wasn’t supposed to happen. But it think it is evidence that your problem is the PST. How big is your PST? At this point I’d create new PST and migrate data from the old one if you can.

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OK, I found scanpst. I ran it and that made matters worse. It found some errors and after fixing them Outlook wouldn’t open. Outlook started and then immediately shut down. I replaced the ‘repaired’ pst with the backup and now I’m back where I started.

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Andrew, I still have ‘scanpst.exe’ (a.k.a. the Inbox Repair Tool) in my Office 2003; it installed in:

C:Program FilesCommon FilesSystemMSMAPI1033

It’s not Exchange only, it’s specifically intended for PST files. If you can find it, run it on your PST. You may need to search ‘Hidden Folders and Files’ to find ‘scanpst.exe’.

Reply | Quote

This is a standalone system, not attached to an Exchange server. I believe scanpst is an Exchange utility. There’s no such application on my system. Earlier versions of Outlook had the ‘Inbox Repair Tool’, but that seems to have disappeared from the latest version.

I am using Norton One-button checkup to clean up the Registry. It runs every night, so there should be no orphaned registry entries. I guess I’ll have to try exporting everything to a new .pst file.

Reply | Quote

I removed all traces of Norton and that didn’t help. I agree with you that it was an unlikely culprit; Symantec has always been very good at keeping their stuff compatible but I didn’t know what else to try. As I said before, I did not have this problem with Outlook XP or any previous version, so I just wondered if Symantec had dropped the ball.

I am stumped. My main problem is that uninstalling and reinstalling does not fix the problem. Clearly, uninstalling does not completely remove everything and what I would really like to know is how to completely clean out all traces of Office without reformatting and reinstalling everything.

Reply | Quote

I have been running Norton’s AV for many years, including since I installed Office 2003 including a beta version and have NOT had this problem.
If there is a “Fax” program running it will also keep Out running in the background.

Look in the “Task Manager” and see what is running. There are a LOT of programs that like to access the Outlook program. Anyting with a calendar with reminders will want to.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

Reply | Quote

I ran detect and repair before I uninstalled and reinstalled Office 2003. I’ve got to think it’s something to do with Norton AntiVirus. I’m going to take that out of the equation before I try anything else.

Reply | Quote

Hi Andrew

Try running “Detect and Repair” and select the options to restore shortcuts and discard customizations.

Another option to look at is adjusting the interval that Outlook schedules a send/receive. To do this select Tools>Options and on the mail setup tab click send/receive.

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