Help with Outlook?

[HYoung]

I downloaded Office 2010 Pro but when I try to start Outlook, it looks for a path that does not exist on my new computer. All other Office programs work well. Can someone advise me how I can reset a correct path?

[Kraai]

Hi

Can you tell us what OS you are using, and can you paste the error message here?

[HYoung]

Windows 7 on a 64 bit Dell computer. It is first looking for C:DocumentsandSettings(not present on my machine) then my name\LocalSettings\ApplicationData\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook1.pst

[Kraai]

I am just thinking here. Did you upgrade from a previous version, say XP/vista, to Windows 7?
The path you mentioned above, are one to be found on an XP system.

I do not have windows7 myself, but as far as I know, in windows7 the Documents and Settings folder has been changed to My Documents. The path should look something like this:

C:\users\yourusername\My Documents

There could be a lock on My Documents folder as well.

As far as I know, the .pst file should be in the Outlook Files folder in your My Documents folder.

See if you can locate it there?

[HYoung]

yes you are exactly correct on all issues. I transferred files from an XP computer to a W7 computer and the pet file is in the location you describe

[Kraai]

Hi

Glad you could locate your pst file.

If this resolved your problem, please mark this thread as solved.

[HYoung]

Maybe I misunderstood something. I can locate the file but outlook cannot. As soon as I try to open it the problem occurs

[Kraai]

OK, no problem, let's see what can be done.

When you open outlook, you get the error, right?

You need to tell outlook where the file is now, by changing the location in outlook to where it is to be found now.

Look for the message as part of the error message that you get, that says something like "browse your computer to locate the file" and then you browse the exact path to where you located the file previously, choose it, and say OK. Close outlook, and open again outlook, and it should be working.

Let us know how you doing on above.

[HYoung]

Thanks but I cannot do that. I just get an error message with a red X that says "Cannot open Microsoft Outlook. Cannot open Outlook window..." I cannot even highlight and paste the error message.

[Kraai]

See if it helps if you do the following:

Go to Start

Then click on run

In the box, type: Outlook.exe /resetnavpane (note there is a space after .exe)

Enter

Tell us what happened when you do above.

[HYoung]

Unfortunately I got the exact same messsage

[Kraai]

OK, I do not think this problem is going to beat us. We must beat it rather. After all, it is just a program.

Let me sum up what we have up to now:

1. You upgraded to windows 7 and made a clean install of Office 2010.
2. Office 2010 is working fine, but not outlook.
3. Outlook could not find the path to the .pst file, but you know where it is located.
4. Now, when you start outlook, you do not get the "cannot find file" message anymore, but you get a message "Cannot start outlook. Cannot Open the outlook window. Invalid XML, the view cannot be loaded"
5. The command Start-> outlook.exe /resetnavpane renders the same error message as above? You did put a space between .exe and / ?

If all of above is true, lets try something else.

Go to Start > Type there: Regedit and enter

1. Locate HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem
2. Delete the Profiles key under the Windows Messaging (Subsystem) key.

You may also want to make sure that your installation of office 2010 is up to date.

Let us know if that helped!

See if this helps, and let us know.

[HYoung]

All the above is true and I'll try the Regedit when I get home. One question, the instructions above indicate Windows NT. Should that be Windows XP?

I forgot to mention that in reference to your comment #4, I have always gotten the same message and I never was given the choice of browsing my computer to find the correct Outlook link. All other Office 2010 programs work fine.

[Kraai]

Windows NT is what is on my own XP computer, it might be the same on yours, as I am not sure if it refers to the OS name, like XP or Windows7, or to the overall 32 bit OS of Microsoft. I think the latter.

[HYoung]

I found the file in the registry. In Profiles, there were 2 subfiles. I was Default REG_SZ with no values and the other was DefaultProfile Outlook and under the Outlook File were about 28 subfiles. If I delete them will that have any effect on the current other email system I am using? Also I did see registry entries of Outlook.Application.11 and Outlook.Application. There was also Outlook.Application.14 which I believe is my current version of Outlook.

I greatly appreciate your taking the time to help me and I apologize for my naive questions

[Kraai]

The way I understand, is that nothing serious can happen when you delete all profile keys you found there. The worst thing, that should be, is after you are done, and you are able to open outlook, you have to re-create a new profile for yourself, by following the outlook prompts, and also re-create your email addresses/mail servers that you want outlook to use.

Here in Daniweb, user alc6379 wrote a good article about this method, you can find it here. There is also more information in that article that you may find usefull.

[HYoung]

Interesting development. I read the link you gave me and went into my mail settings. The default was set to a "personal folder" and clicking on that gave me an error message 0x8040119. I changed the default file for Outlook to the Outlook1 choice that was there as well and with that Outlook began to work. It only loaded the current files in my Inbox in my email account and doesn't list any of my sent emails or any of my old emails. I thought there was one file that was large enough but when I tried to import from it, the message indicated that it was not a pst file although it says it is in the file information. I don't consider the lost older emails a disaster but could I copy the Outlook pst file on my old computer onto a thumb drive and import from that into my current outlook? I did close the bad file call "personal folder" and I'm not sure where that went but it seemed to have been the problem.

Thanks again for all your help

[Kraai]

This is good news. At least you are able to open your outlook now? You will be able to import the mails from your old pst file.

You can import the pst files in Outlook 2010 in following manner :

1. Go to the Outlook 2010, then click on File tab.

2. After that click on Open and then click Open/import? Outlook Data File.

3. Browse to where your .pst files are located to import and then click OK.

If you are not able to import certain files that means they are corrupted.