Outlook 2003 not responding, or extremely slow

[Peter C.]

I have Outlook 2003 on my Acer TravelMate 661 with 1.25 GB RAM and
addiotional external HDD of 400 GB.

Since the beginning of June 2007 Outlook has become unresponsive, slowing
down, not reacting to clicks or right-clicks, freezing completely for several
minutes.

Sending report (automatically) to MS obtains no reply.

I have repaired/reinstalled Outlook from the Office Pro CD, with no result.

Latest Outlook/Offfice 2003 Update was installed automatically on May 9 from
MS Update records.

Is this related to my archived data on *pst files?

Any other help would be much appreciated.

 

[Peter C.]

Peter C. back again with a CRY FOR HELP.

After yesterday's post (see below) I tried uninstalling the latest Office
2003 updates dated May 9 2007, but this solved nothing. I then uninstalled
Outlook from the Office 2003 suite and reinstalled it. To no avail.

Outlook is as slow as ever and hangs, freezes, at almost every action. It
results in a "not responding" message every three to four minutes. This is
not what I bought Office for and I am totally amazed that this should
continue to happen.

The only new software on my computer is Nero 7 Essentials, installed a week
ago, and in terms of hardware I have just upgraded the SDRAM to 1.25 GB from
512 MB.

No other progammes are suffering. I am running XP Pro as my OS, my hard disk
is 40% used and defragging is carried out twice-weekly. My AV programme is
func tioning normally and yesterday's scan revealed no virus, worm or trojan.

My Outlook.pst file is at 255 MB and my archive.pst is at 500 MB, or
thereabouts.

WHAT IS HAPPENING? HAS ANYONE GOT SOME ADVICE FOR ME?

 

[Brian Tillman]

Peter C. back again with a CRY FOR HELP.

After yesterday's post (see below) I tried uninstalling the latest
Office 2003 updates dated May 9 2007, but this solved nothing. I then
uninstalled Outlook from the Office 2003 suite and reinstalled it. To
no avail.

It's rare that uninstalling and resinstalling Office will fix a problem of
this nature. Have you tried a new mail profile?

 

[Peter C.]

Good of you to point this out Brian. Sadly, I'm not entirely sure what you
mean by "a new mail profile". Would you be kind enough to give me a short
explanation, to point me in the right direction?

I have just tried another tactic: I reduced gthe size of the outlook.pst
file and the archive.pst file by moving loads of MB of old material (emails,
attachments and stuff) to a newly created *.pst file. I'll let you know if
this helps.

Peter C.

 

[Lex]

Peter:

I am having the same problem. Just got a new laptop, and I installed
Outlook 2003. It worked fine until I imported my saved .pst, then it REALLY
slowed down. I have restored the PC to prior to the install twice now, and
the same result occurs. I'm at my wits end. Let me know if you figure this
out.

Lex

 

[Brian Tillman]

Good of you to point this out Brian. Sadly, I'm not entirely sure
what you mean by "a new mail profile". Would you be kind enough to
give me a short explanation, to point me in the right direction?

Take a look here: http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/newprofile.htm

I have just tried another tactic: I reduced gthe size of the
outlook.pst file and the archive.pst file by moving loads of MB of
old material (emails, attachments and stuff) to a newly created *.pst
file. I'll let you know if this helps.

Well, Outlook 2003's PSTs can grow to 20GB. However, if you were using an
older PST created by an earlier version of Outlook, then the max size is 2GB
(but I wouldn't let it get bigger than about 1.5GB).

 

[Peter C.]

Brian Tillmann wrote:


:

Well, Outlook 2003's PSTs can grow to 20GB. However, if you were using an
older PST created by an earlier version of Outlook, then the max size is 2GB
(but I wouldn't let it get bigger than about 1.5GB).

Thanks for this Brian. Useful to know, but not, if you see what I mean. My
PST files are only in the 55 to 200 MB range, so this is not the problem. I
tried downsizing the archive.pst and outlook.pst files by moving much of
their content to separate PST files stored on another drive, and not
connected to Outlook on my main drive C. I also made sure Outlook doesn't
include these in its Personal Folders list. In short, this had NO EFFECT
WHATSOEVER. Outlook 2003 still freezes, becomes unresponsive, or whatever
term you care to use.

Another thought, but a wild one, was that my AVK G-DATA (German origin)
anti-virus programme was interfering with Outlook, but this does not seem to
be the case. It was installed some months ago and has never been a problem,
quite the opposite, in fact.

Would you suggest taking Office 2003 off my system entirely, including the
updates provided automarically by Microsoft, and then reinstalling from
scratch? It sounds tempting, but I worry about losing essential data, despite
all the precautions I might take.

I hear that LEX has a similar problem, but caused he thinks by manipulating
his PST files. Thanks for your input LEX. I can only advise to WATCH THIS
SPACE for future developments. I entirely share your frustration, believe you
me.

Best wishes to all concerned - Peter C.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Thanks for this Brian. Useful to know, but not, if you see what I
mean.

I do. You were speculating that Outlook's performance might be due to
excessive PST size and I was trying to point out that that is unlikely,
given the supported PST sizes.

Would you suggest taking Office 2003 off my system entirely,
including the updates provided automarically by Microsoft, and then
reinstalling from scratch? It sounds tempting, but I worry about
losing essential data, despite all the precautions I might take.

I'm glad you're happy with your AV program, but it should be configured so
as to NOT scan incoming mail. While this may not be a contributor to your
problem, integrating scanners with Outlook often does lead to problems.

Were I in your shoes, I'd try the new mail profile, as I suggested. I don't
see any evidence in your post that you tried it.

 

[lkthompson]

Peter and Brian,

I am having similar issues with Outlook 2003 freezing when trying to
click/right click on things...also have a small (172 mb) archived pst file. I
tried creating a new email profile but it didn't work...also tried detect and
repair for Outlook.

any other ideas, Brian?

thanks

 

[Warren]

There would seem to be a new issue with Outlook and a recent batch of
security updates. Try searching this forum using:

2003 slow 931768

and seeing if any of the suggestions posted there work for you. The one
about first opening the OUTLOOK TODAY pane/shortcut before using Outlook Mail
fixed a similar slow outlook for me.

 

[lkthompson]

Thanks Warren..I looked into this but it wasn't the problem with mine.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Peter and Brian,

I am having similar issues with Outlook 2003 freezing when trying to
click/right click on things...also have a small (172 mb) archived pst
file. I tried creating a new email profile but it didn't work...also
tried detect and repair for Outlook.

any other ideas, Brian?

Any add-ins?

 

[lkthompson]

No - but I just got help in another post of mine. It turns out that I
shouldn't have saved the pst file on a network drive because of erratic
connectivity (which causes corruption, I learned). So I copied the file to a
local drive (C) and ran the scanpst.exe to fix errors. After moving that file
to Outlook as "Personal Folders," I was able to quickly transfer all files to
my regular mailbox. I then deleted the corrupt Personal Folders and the empty
Personal Folders. It is finished!