Originally Posted by ifii563
I used to support MS Office products for a living, so I would like to offer a few suggestions that I did not yet see mentioned.
You are likely using a *.PST file to store your emails in Outlook. The problem is, is that these files corrupt really easily. But don't worry too much at this point, since you can often repair the damage by using scanpst.exe to repair the file. Make a backup first, then let the program inspect your file for errors. Even if your *.PST file is only a few months old, you will still often find it needs to be repaired. In addition to regularly backing up and repairing the *.PST file, you need to choose to compact the PST file when inside Outlook. If you do a search on how to compact the PST file from Microsoft's help pages, it will show you step by step.
The other common problem was that the Outlook profile itself would become corrupted, thus causing Outlook to run really slow. Create a new Outlook profile from the control panel and try that.
If this doesn't help, let me know. I will check this thread later tonight to see how you get on ..
Robert
Robert, thanks a million for taking time to help me with this. I desperately need to get my Outlook back to normal and very much appreciate your kind gesture.
Some follow up questions from my side would be:
1) Im not sure what an Outlook profile is, but in any event, can I just create an identical profile with a new name to solve the problem? When I do this, do I need (have?) to delete the old profile?
2) Regarding scanning & repairing the PST file, how do I get to and run this scanpst.exe file you mention? I assume its not in the menu of Outlook, or...? My Outlook file is very old... Ive carried over my Outlook file from at least 2 previous versions of Outlook - I do this every time I switch laptops, so this is probably one of my issues.
3) Regarding the PST file, doesnt the detect and repair function in MS Office do this PST scanning and verifying or am I confusing features? Ive tried the detect and repair function a couple of times to no avail.
4) One option Im considering is just upgrading my MS Office Pro 2002 to the newer version 2003. If I choose to do this, will the re-installation also solve my corruption issues? I would expect the profile would perhaps be fixed, but if I choose to do the intelligent update installation that leaves my source data files (including PST email and contact files for Outlook) intact, perhaps I wont be addressing the corrupted PST file issue, right...?
Thanks again for your assistance with this. Im off to use the search/help function to see which fixes I can do myself.
Cheers,
Gaucho