error message: "The profile is not valid. Enter a valid profile n

[John]

Aloha,
In the last few days I've worked on upgrading my .pst to a new version of a
..pst and importing all of my contacts, tasks, etc. into the new .pst. I
encountered a problem of winding up with two Personal Folders both
referencing the same .pst. I could not close either one of the .pst so I
followed the instructions on a"howto-outlook" websitefor creating a a new
profile. I following the instructions and pointed the new profile to my
newly created .pst file.

Now encountering a new problem.

Now each time I start Outlook I get an Microsoft Office Outlook error
message that reads, "The profile is not valid. Enter a valid profile name."
When I click OK and choose the profile that I've just created Outlook opens
perfectly. I do have the checkbox "Set as default profile" selected.
The new profile is the only one that is left as I've removed all of the rest
of my previous profiles.
Is there some deeper place where a reminant of an old profile is stored?
Somewhere like the registry?
Is there a way to fix this?
Do I need to reinstall Outlook?
Do I need to reformat my hard drive and reinstall Windows?
How can I fix this problem?

Thank you,
John

 

[Jocelyn Fiorello [MVP - Outlook]]

You might want to try one more time with a new profile, and set Outlook to
open with that one exclusively. I'm not sure why you are getting that error,
but reinstalling Outlook would almost certainly NOT fix it. (Reinstalling
Windows might but it's a bit drastic!) Try it and post back with the results.

--
Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please reply
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[John]

Aloha Jocelyn,
I had tried creating new profiles and tried it again at your recomendation.
I still am getting the error message when I open Outlook.

Can you recommend another cure for this problem?

Thank you,
John

 

[Jocelyn Fiorello [MVP - Outlook]]

I'm searching around to see if I can find a solution, but in the meantime --
when you create the new profiles, are you (A) creating them from scratch, not
copying them, and (B) giving them unique names?

--
Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please reply
only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***

 

[John]

Aloha Jocelyn,
Thank you for looking around for solution. Yes to both of your questions.
I did make the new profiles from scratch and I did give them unique names.

One other thing about profiles on my computer. Some time ago we tried
testing an Exchange Server account on this computer. In order to do that we
(our former computer tech and me) set up two profiles--one called "test" and
one called "Echange Server". We tested to Exchange Server for awhile and
found it not to my liking as the service was very slow and seemed to bog down
my computer. After I closed the Echange Server experiment I had the tech
set up the "test" profile as the default profile so that I could log onto
Outlook without needing to choose which profile I was to use. I am not sure
what he did to make this happen. Is it possible he made a change in a
registry or some other place that directed Outlook to use the "test" profile?

As I set out to set up the new profile that I am using now I deleted the
"test" profile and the "Exchange Server" profile before I set up the new
profiles. Is it possible that this has caused some problem?

As soon as I remove the profile named "test" I get the error message even
though I have the Mail dialog set to use a newer profile. If I recreate a
profile called "test" I do not get an error message even if it is not choosen
in the Mail dialog as "Always use this profile". This is why I think that he
may have messed with a registry somewhere.

For now I have Outlook opening as long as I leave a profile in the list
called "test". It bothers me a bit but not as much as the error message
ethat I was getting each time I opened Outlook.


Please let me know if you can see a reason why this is happening and what I
can do to fix it. I am a bit concerned that this is could be a problem in
the future or when we upgrade to Outlook 2007.

Thank you,
John

 

[Jocelyn Fiorello [MVP - Outlook]]

Still searching around for answers. I'll post back when I hear something.

--
Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please reply
only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***

 

[Jocelyn Fiorello [MVP - Outlook]]

Two more questions I can asked based on feedback I just received:

1) Just out of curiosity, have you tried asking Outlook to prompt you for a
profile when it starts, just to avoid getting the error? (I scanned your
previous posts to see if you already mentioned that, but I only see the
opposite, that you told Outlook to always use one of the profiles.)

2) Are you starting Outlook from a shortcut? If so, check the path in the
shortcut properties and make sure there isn't a switch at the end of the path
telling Outlook to start with a particular profile.

--
Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please reply
only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***

 

[John]

Aloha Jocelyn,
I seemed to have gotten Outlook working. In the end I seemed to have been
able to get a profile to work. I do need to have a profile named "test" no
matter what or Outlook won't work.

At your suggestion I set the profile to prompt for a profile. That worked
too.

I also checked the Outlook shortcut. The target is:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\OUTLOOK.EXE" /recycle

but I get the same results when I directly click on Outlook.exe.

I opened the .pst from another computer and it worked fine so I don't think
the .pst is a problem.

Thanks for trying to help me figure it out.

Mahalo,
John

 

[Jocelyn Fiorello [MVP - Outlook]]

OK -- glad you got it to work in any event. If you ever figure out how to
"really" fix it (i.e. get rid of "temp") please post back and tell us how you
did it. The /recycle switch just tells Outlook not to open another instance
of the program if you already have one running.

--
Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please reply
only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***