Member Avatar for ramforce

I'm currently running Win Vista and Outlook 2003 with the latest service packs.
I have a 36 Mb .ost file with rich text emails in it.
The thing is when I hit either reply or forward buttons I get "Out of memory or systems resources. try closing some windows or restart outlook"
emails i'm replying to are just a couple lines long, plain text, I'm replying in rich text.
I have Win Vista, 4 Gb RAM, 80Gb free space and dual core processor.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

:)
Ramforce.

  • 2 Contributors
  • 1 Reply
  • 291 Views
  • 3 Days Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by TT4Titans

Dani AI

Generated

The error message is a generic Outlook/Windows complaint rather than proof of insufficient physical RAM — with 4 GB and a 36 MB .ost the usual causes are Outlook-specific: add-ins or shell hooks, a corrupted offline store or forms cache, the Word e-mail editor / RTF handling, or an antivirus product injecting into the compose process. described the environment clearly; ’ suggestion to free background processes and adjust paging is reasonable system‑level advice, but try the Outlook-focused checks first.

A short diagnostic sequence that often isolates the cause:

  • Launch Outlook in Safe Mode to disable add‑ins temporarily:
outlook.exe /safe

If Reply/Forward works in Safe Mode the culprit is almost always a COM add‑in or third‑party integration. Also test composing in Plain Text and temporarily disable "Use Microsoft Office Word 2003 to edit e‑mail messages" (Mail Format) — Word-based editing and RTF/TNEF conversion can fail when a message contains a broken embedded object. Clearing the custom forms cache is another quick check.

If the problem persists, address the offline store and data corruption: close Outlook, back up the .ost, then rename or move it so Outlook rebuilds the cache on restart. Running the Inbox repair utilities (scanpst.exe / scanost.exe) can fix store corruption prior to rebuilding. Be careful only to remove an .ost when using Cached Exchange Mode — always keep backups.

Other useful steps before system tweaks: temporarily disable AV e‑mail scanning, test with a new Outlook profile, and inspect Application event logs for Outlook/Office errors (those entries often point to the failing module). Recommended order: Safe Mode → disable Word editor / plain‑text test → repair/recreate OST → AV / new profile → then consider system‑level pagefile or process pruning if still required.

Member Avatar for TT4Titans

Go to Start-Run (may need to Right click on start then Prperties and scroll down and put a check mark next to run to add to list) Type MSCONFIG uncheck all you don't need running in background eg. quicktime, word, etc.

Now after that go to control panel.

1. Open System by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking System.

2. In the left pane, click Advanced system settings. Administrator permission required If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

3. On the Advanced tab, under Performance, click Settings.

4. Click the Advanced tab, and then, under Virtual memory, click Change.

5. Clear the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives check box.

6. Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the paging file you want to change.

7. Click Custom size, type a new size in megabytes in the Initial size (MB) or Maximum size (MB) box, click Set, and then click OK.

Seeing how you have 4GB Ram set Min. 2048 and max to 4095.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.