Outlook won't open after first time closed

[Scott]

I have a WinXP machine running Outlook 2003 SP2 (Office Standard). The
Outlook 2003 client is connected to an Exchange Server (2003). The first time
the Windows client is booted the Outlook client will open successfully.
However, when I close Outlook and then reattempt to open it, it will never
open. I can see the multiple Outlook.exe process started, and after some time
all the instances of the process will end themselves, with the exception of
one Outlook.exe instance. Does anyone know what may be causing this? I've
checked the updates, and no new updates were requested. I removed the .ost
file, and let Outlook rebuild it, that was no success. I'm not sure what is
causing this, any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[neo [mvp outlook]]

Sounds like you have a 3rd party program or addin installed that isn't
playing nicely with Outlook. Things to look for would be PDA, Fax, RSS,
..etc software that uses/protects Outlook data.

 

[Scott]

Neo,

Thanks for the response. I have disabled all AddIn's from the Tools->Options
menu, and the problem still persists. I can see that the Outlook.exe process
doesn't end when Outlook is shutdown. Do you know of any free programs that
will force that process to shutdown? I see a couple, but they want money for
it (which I don't blame them for it). Is there anyway (other than
uninstalling each application) to tell which 3rd party app that's causing
this?

Thanks!

 

[Pat Willener]

Does it also happen if you start Outlook in safe mode (using the /SAFE
program switch) ?

 

[neo [mvp outlook]]

Knockout is free & I know/trust the programmer.
http://sunflowerhead.com/software/knockout/

As for knowing, not really as it could be as simple as disabling Microsoft
Word as your e-mail editor if running Outlook 2000/2002/2003. (Basically if
you use Word as your email editor and Word is still open when Outlook
closes, Word holds a reference to Outlook until it closes.)

Outside of that, the biggest offending programs for me that will hold
Outlook open are ActiveSync or WinFax. I've given up on WinFax and the
latest versions of ActiveSync allows my PDA to sync directly against
Exchange.

 

[Scott]

Thanks for the suggestions. I downloaded process explorer (sysinternals.com)
and basically shutdown all process, and also removing all add-ins. This
machine does run ActiveSync, and I agree the MobileActiveSynch is much
better. The only think about knockout, is it requires the user to kill the
process. I was hoping to get it to close the process as it should.

To answer the other question: Yes, it does kill the process successfully
when opening/closing in Safe Mode. What could be the difference, beside the
Add-Ins?

Thanks to All!

 

[neo [mvp outlook]]

FWIW, Tools > Options > Other > COM Addins doesn't show all addins being
used by Outlook. If a third party registers their addin under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins in the registry,
the user doesn't get to see or disable it via the user interface.

A clean install of Office on an operating system will only net 1 the VBA
addin for Microsoft Outlook. (If using small business contact manager, then
you will have entries for VBA + MS Business CRM.)

As for the /safe command, it shuts off a lot more than just addins. (Does
things like turning off reading pane, toolbars, COM Addins + Extended MAPI
Addins.)