Outlook 2003 will not open and uses all resources trying.

[Mental Floss]

I am supporting a ThinkPad laptop with MS Outlook 2003 running on Windows XP
SP2. When attempting to open Outlook the laptop seems to slow down and there
is absolutely no response apparent from Outlook, no splash screen , no
interface, no nothing. I go to task manager and I can see the Outlook.exe
process running, and the performance chart shows that the processor and
memory are slowly increasing to over 50%, every time I attempt to open Olk.
After waiting forever , I kill the process, and try to restart Outlook. At
this time it reports that it failed previously but will open in Safe Mode. I
have tried uninstalling and reinstalling Outlook and the same issue occurs.
Tried detect and repair. Tried creating a new Outlook Profile. Tried deleting
the .ost and rebuilding . Nothing has fixed this issue.

Anyone out there seen this and have any suggestions? Help.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

I am supporting a ThinkPad laptop with MS Outlook 2003 running on Windows XP
SP2. When attempting to open Outlook the laptop seems to slow down and
there
is absolutely no response apparent from Outlook, no splash screen , no
interface, no nothing. I go to task manager and I can see the Outlook.exe
process running, and the performance chart shows that the processor and
memory are slowly increasing to over 50%, every time I attempt to open Olk.
After waiting forever , I kill the process, and try to restart Outlook. At
this time it reports that it failed previously but will open in Safe Mode.
I
have tried uninstalling and reinstalling Outlook and the same issue occurs.
Tried detect and repair. Tried creating a new Outlook Profile. Tried
deleting
the .ost and rebuilding . Nothing has fixed this issue.

The first thing I'd try is to delete the file extend.dat in
%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook and the file
outcmd.dat in %AppData%\Microsoft\Outlook.
When it opens in safe mode, does it behave abmormally still?