Outlook 2007 shortcuts

[Tengu]

I've seen several messages regarding the spontaneous disappearance of the
customizable Outlook Navigation pane shortcuts in 2003. What about Outlook
2007? Is there a file I can back up that can help me restore these shortcuts
when they disappear from Outlook 2007?

Thanks!

 

[Roady [MVP]]

<profilename>.xml will hold these. As for the "spontaneous" part; this is
related to profile corruption which can occur for instance when Outlook
isn't closed properly.

 

[Tengu]

Thanks...

I appreciate the help. I understand that it can derive from profile
corruption as you describe it, but to me it's beyond dispute that it
nonetheless happens too easily and too frequently. Before migrating to
Outlook 2007 I had abandoned use of these shortcuts because it is such a pain
to manually rebuild them, considering how many I want to use. It was never
terribly long before they got corrupted again. When I started using Outlook
2007 I began using them again, hoping the problem had not migrated to the new
version. But on my office computer which was upgraded to Office 2007 they
didn't last long and have disappeared twice in little over a month. They've
been more stable so far on my new laptop which is a native Vista machine and
has only been installed with Office 2007.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

That's an interesting case. In my years of use and support of Outlook 2003
and now 2007 I haven't come across many cases where this happened
repeatedly. Usually they were just one-off cases and for me personally never
failed at all. Are you sharing your settings between your office computer
and laptop? In other words; are you using a single login and roaming
profiles? Also, what mail account type are you using?

Also, what do you do when the corruption occurs? Are you only recreating
your shortcuts or are you something else as well? When it happens again I
would highly recommend using the /resetnavpane switch before recreating your
shortcuts again;
Start-> Run; outlook.exe /resetnavpane

As for the upgraded machine I would recommend resetting extend.dat and
outcmd.dat by renaming them to .old and to recreate your mail profile;
http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/newprofile.htm

 

[Tengu]

That's interesting, indeed! No, not sharing settings. I handle those things
independently on my office machine and laptop. I'm using 2 pop3 e-mail
accounts that are related to the domain of a company I've worked with a while
and my own domain.

I'm not sure I can tell you what happens when the corruption occurs. I know
I sometimes don't close Outlook manually before shutting down my computer.
Is that a no-no? I'd a thought that the computer would know how to shut down
individual programs when a shut-down sequence is initiated. Every once in a
while Outlook's operation gets "muddy" and I run SCANPST.EXE. Last time I
lost them I think it was related to running SCANPST.

I will certainly run the resetnavpane command as you suggest. Can you tell
me exactly what it does so I fully know what I'm doing?

Thanks for your help!!

That's an interesting case. In my years of use and support of Outlook 2003
and now 2007 I haven't come across many cases where this happened
repeatedly. Usually they were just one-off cases and for me personally never
failed at all. Are you sharing your settings between your office computer
and laptop? In other words; are you using a single login and roaming
profiles? Also, what mail account type are you using?

Also, what do you do when the corruption occurs? Are you only recreating
your shortcuts or are you something else as well? When it happens again I
would highly recommend using the /resetnavpane switch before recreating your
shortcuts again;
Start-> Run; outlook.exe /resetnavpane

As for the upgraded machine I would recommend resetting extend.dat and
outcmd.dat by renaming them to .old and to recreate your mail profile;
http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/newprofile.htm

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----

Thanks...

I appreciate the help. I understand that it can derive from profile
corruption as you describe it, but to me it's beyond dispute that it
nonetheless happens too easily and too frequently. Before migrating to
Outlook 2007 I had abandoned use of these shortcuts because it is such a
pain
to manually rebuild them, considering how many I want to use. It was
never
terribly long before they got corrupted again. When I started using
Outlook
2007 I began using them again, hoping the problem had not migrated to the
new
version. But on my office computer which was upgraded to Office 2007 they
didn't last long and have disappeared twice in little over a month.
They've
been more stable so far on my new laptop which is a native Vista machine
and
has only been installed with Office 2007.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Initiating a shutdown while other applications are still open is indeed a
no-no. Although the OS knows how to shut down individual programs gradefully
a shutdown is an impatient process that goes for optimized user experience.
In other words, it does send a gracefull command but when it doesn't happen
fast enough it will go for a kill command to so shutdown won't "hang"
because of it. So the more you have left open the slower apps will respond
the fast the OS will go for the kill command. Since closing of Outlook is a
rather slow process especially when you have multiple add-ins manaully
closing it would be even more peferred.

/resetnavpane resets the Navigation Pane to the state it was in when Outlook
was first installed. This means all customizations will be lost but it will
also force the link with the mailprofile again and clear out any other form
of corruption that could have happened with the Navigation Pane. I have
found it to be a very reliable switch.

Scanpst.exe shouldn't break the Navigation Pane but when the pst-file has
had a corruption and indexes have to be rewritten it indeed could be that
features that rely on these indexes could stop functioning after the repair.
Then it wouldn't be so much that scanpst.exe causes the corruption but that
features were relying on corrupted information to work properly.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----

That's interesting, indeed! No, not sharing settings. I handle those
things
independently on my office machine and laptop. I'm using 2 pop3 e-mail
accounts that are related to the domain of a company I've worked with a
while
and my own domain.

I'm not sure I can tell you what happens when the corruption occurs. I
know
I sometimes don't close Outlook manually before shutting down my computer.
Is that a no-no? I'd a thought that the computer would know how to shut
down
individual programs when a shut-down sequence is initiated. Every once in
a
while Outlook's operation gets "muddy" and I run SCANPST.EXE. Last time I
lost them I think it was related to running SCANPST.

I will certainly run the resetnavpane command as you suggest. Can you
tell
me exactly what it does so I fully know what I'm doing?

Thanks for your help!!

That's an interesting case. In my years of use and support of Outlook
2003
and now 2007 I haven't come across many cases where this happened
repeatedly. Usually they were just one-off cases and for me personally
never
failed at all. Are you sharing your settings between your office computer
and laptop? In other words; are you using a single login and roaming
profiles? Also, what mail account type are you using?

Also, what do you do when the corruption occurs? Are you only recreating
your shortcuts or are you something else as well? When it happens again I
would highly recommend using the /resetnavpane switch before recreating
your
shortcuts again;
Start-> Run; outlook.exe /resetnavpane

As for the upgraded machine I would recommend resetting extend.dat and
outcmd.dat by renaming them to .old and to recreate your mail profile;
http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/newprofile.htm

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


-----

Thanks...

I appreciate the help. I understand that it can derive from profile
corruption as you describe it, but to me it's beyond dispute that it
nonetheless happens too easily and too frequently. Before migrating to
Outlook 2007 I had abandoned use of these shortcuts because it is such
a
pain
to manually rebuild them, considering how many I want to use. It was
never
terribly long before they got corrupted again. When I started using
Outlook
2007 I began using them again, hoping the problem had not migrated to
the
new
version. But on my office computer which was upgraded to Office 2007
they
didn't last long and have disappeared twice in little over a month.
They've
been more stable so far on my new laptop which is a native Vista
machine
and
has only been installed with Office 2007.