How to fix Outlook 2003 startup crash |
After months of being frustrated with an unable to start without crashing Outlook 2003 program and not doing enough digging online to find a fix, I’ve finally found the fix without having to dial the Microsoft support and pay 35 bones (or the more ridiculous $240 for elevated issues). I was determined to spend some time to try and find/fix this myself.
Turns out I might never have had to pay that support fee to begin with — if only I had read my own comments better.
While on our family vacation back on July 11, 2005 Robert Scoble had kindly offered to give me a free tech support card. For whatever reason I totally missed that gesture on his part. Doh! Maybe I had some sort of vacation blindness?
The problem
Every time I’d start Outlook 2003 it would crash instantly with the message that the program has encountered an error and needed to restart. It was an endless frustrating loop because every time it restarted the same error would return. This started happening at a very inoppertune time while we were on vacation.
It gave information in the send error report that was of dubious usefulness. I tried Googling the dll and various keyword combinations like “outlook 2003 startup problems.” I tried the command line switches. Tried uninstall and reinstall. Even opened my sealed package of Office 2003 and installed that. All efforts to access Outlook 2003 would result in almost immediate crash.
The solution
Create a new mail profile. Here’s how to do that step by step:
STEP 1. Navigate to START -> Control panel
STEP 2. If necessary, switch to classic view so it looks like the picture below and double mouse click on “mail”
STEP 3. Click on the “show profiles” button.
STEP 4. The default profile (for me) was called “Outlook” and that was the one that was messed up, so I needed to “add” a new one. Click the “Add” button.
STEP 5. Type in a name of your choice for the new profile. In my case I used my initials and the date because this way if it goes haywire again I’ll know how long this fix worked. In the example below I just typed “tdnewprofile” and clicked OK. You will then need to enter default email account information.
STEP 6. Make sure “prompt for profile to be used” is selected and choose OK. If it’s grayed out then you may need to select your new profile name from the dropdown box to change.
STEP 7. Start Outlook 2003. A prompt will appear asking you to choose the profile you want to use. Choose the new profile you created in STEP 5 and then, depending on if you have Business Contact Manager installed or not, rebuild the pst file and setup the new profile.
After that, send some email, check some email. No errors? Woohoo!
More help
Doesn’t fix the problem? Try scanning the Office Community newsgroups.
Did this post make you go hmm?
(4 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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TD, thanks for the info, man. I’ve had problems in the past with Outlook resetting to a “starting from scratch” profile, and I would always have to set everything up again. Next time this happens, I’ll use this tool to see if the original profile is still there somewhere.
Comment by Sterling Camden — December 28, 2005 @ 7:28 pm PST
I have wasted close to 6 hours of troubleshooting trying to get Outlook 2003 to startup.
Googling, repairing, uninstalling, reinstalling, deleting various files.
After reading your tip above I was up and running within 10 seconds.
Shame on Microsoft for not making such a simple solution evident on their website!
Thank you very much TD for the above solution.
Comment by Shylock — January 19, 2006 @ 4:28 am PST
Just tried you little trick and so far so good.What a simple way to fix this. I agree with the other fellow… shame on Microsoft!!!!!!!
Comment by ray — January 19, 2006 @ 7:58 pm PST
I’d like to thank you so much for your information and help! I spent the entire day trying to fix my outlook and after reading your instructions I was able to fix it in a few minutes. Thank you RA
Comment by Roni A — May 28, 2006 @ 5:37 pm PST
[…] Firstly, no, I didn’t know that you could get 1-3 free support calls. Why is it 1-3 support calls? Is it based on time used or what? I contemplated calling them over my issue with Outlook 2003 crashing onload after searching for the rather elusive and yet simple fix. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Microsoft Office is *TOO* expensive — June 7, 2006 @ 1:20 pm PST
THANKS!!!!!!!!
Comment by Mark A Hammer — June 20, 2006 @ 3:20 pm PST
Thank you so much. This problem was really starting to aggravate me and your fix worked. I was able to start a new profile that has not crashed, import my previous calendar items, address, tasks and notes by importing from the old .pst file and finally deleting the old profile.
Comment by Loc — August 28, 2006 @ 2:00 am PST
[…] Looks like no double standard here to me Overall, these numbers only show how many times these people, places and things have been mentioned, not the content of the posts. Without an exhaustive post-by-post study I believe I’ve been just as critical of Google products/services as Microsoft’s. I’m probably a little more critical toward Microsoft than Google on the whole because I dislike a lot of what Microsoft has done, particularly in their many Windows bugs and problems. This serious Outlook issue comes immediately to mind and one that I hope has been fixed in Outlook 2007. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Sweaty fair GYM bag coverage here — August 28, 2006 @ 1:10 pm PST
My own ‘fix’ was easier: I simply ran the standard Disk Cleanup utility (with default selections), and hey presto the problem went away.
Comment by Simon — October 17, 2006 @ 12:41 am PST
Dear TDavid,
You are a real genius. You have saved my headache. I had the same problem as you with my MS Outlook 2003 crashing everytime i open it. I have removed Office 2003 & reinstall again several times. Did some registry cleanup, lookup Microsoft help but none of them have resolved my problem. Your 30 seconds magic solved the problem which my systems & network administrators could not fix. I have definitely learned something today - after 16 hours of headache.
Hixzilla Lafay - Papua New Guinea - Port Moresby
Comment by Hedam Lafana — November 8, 2006 @ 1:51 am PST
Worked great nut the new profile, of course, has no data.
Is there any to retrive the old mail and contacts and notes for Outlook? Thanks.
Comment by don cislo — November 12, 2006 @ 10:48 am PST
It worked, to a point. I’m asked which profile I want to use. Outlook starts up. And then it crashes again.
But hey, it was worth a try!
I’m off to do some more digging …
Comment by David Barrett — November 23, 2006 @ 3:05 pm PST
Thank you so much for posting this!
Comment by Mike — November 24, 2006 @ 1:43 pm PST
If you do not want to lose your current emails then do not add a new profile. The problem is something within the pst file and a couple of other files. I removed all files in the “C:\Documents and Settings\’your user name’\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook” and then copied the files in “C:\Documents and Settings\’your user name’\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook” folder, which contains the pst file that hold all your email information, to another location. With these files removed I started Outlook. Outlook prompted me to create a new pst file. I did that with the no encryption option selected. Outlook came up blank. At this point you can setup all your accounts but that would be too much work. Exit Outlook and copy the pst file and the other files that were copied to another location back to “C:\Documents and Settings\’your user name’\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook” overwriting any existing files. Restart Outlook. At this point things worked for me until I did a send and receive. After getting an error I restarted Outlook again and did a send and receive on individual accounts. I got an error after doing a send and receive on a particular account so I moved the folder within outlook to another mail folder that I created in outlook. Did a send and receive on all (F9 key) and all is well again. I have all my old mail and it is not crashing. The bottom line is that the pst file has some issues when this happens.
Comment by Programmer777 — December 19, 2006 @ 7:42 pm PST
Thank you for posting this. I started having this problem a couple days ago and uninstalled twice and really didn\’t know what to do. I Googled the problem and found your page and now all is well.
Thank you!!
Comment by Gary Burzell — December 27, 2006 @ 1:58 pm PST
Many thanks, oulook2003 was crashing without error message and I could not find any fix…
Comment by Jean-Marc Guiol — February 2, 2007 @ 2:30 pm PST
Many Thanks. Outlook 2003 is crashing without error message. But non of the solutions,
here provided did help
Comment by Lutz Foerster — February 4, 2007 @ 4:26 pm PST
Thanks for this info ! I was nearly insane with this crash.
Comment by Martin Kaspar — February 7, 2007 @ 2:25 am PST
Thanks so much for all the info. I was in a panic when my Outlook 2003 crashed after loading IE7. I had to play around and find a combination of the info from original poster and Programmer777. First, my pst files are in a different location than 777 suggested. I’d recommend doing a search for pst files using the microsoft search function. (Be sure to allow it to search hidden files and folders). Then I went and created a new email profile using the steps recommended by first poster. My original file was names outlook.pst, and this created a new one called outlook1.pst. Once I opened Outlook with my new profile (which was empty), I closed out Outlook and deleted the new outlook1.pst file. I then renamed my old file (the one that was causing all the crashes) with the 1 on the end. Opened up with the new profile and it worked great! I went back into the email profiles and selected the new one and indicated to always open with that and everything has been dandy since. Thanks to all!
Comment by Stephanie Hedspeth — February 10, 2007 @ 6:59 pm PST
YOU are the man. Thanks so much for this fix. I was going crazy! I am up and running again. My blood pressure and stress levels just dropped like a stone. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. True friends are great people!
Nick in China
Comment by Nick R China — February 21, 2007 @ 4:50 am PST
This did the trick to get Outlook started again. Any tricks for regaining stored mail? Otherwise Thanks a bunch. We were only down for hours instead of days.
Comment by Carl — March 9, 2007 @ 8:46 am PST
Hey there
I have Office Pro Edition 2003. On a new install Outlook keep crashing. I have carried out both these fixes but when I start MS Outlook it keeps erroring out.
Am at the end of my tether trying to fixing this. Uninstalled office - reinstalled and each time the same thing happens. Hmmmmmmmm is the right word here.
Comment by Ian — March 11, 2007 @ 11:16 pm PST
Update on this error..
Ok I was blessed to get free support case with MS here in NZ and spoke with a great support person in the USA (I think)
In esence here is what we did..
Went to C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033
renamed MSMAPI32.DLL to Msmapi.old
Then tried to open Oulook..
It booted windows installer - its looks for your Office CD so put that in the drive and it installed just that one file MSMAPI32.DLL.
It then booted Outlook all by itself and lo and behold it checked my email and no error message.
We rebooted and opened Outlook again and it checked my mail again and no error came up.
Support person said MS thinks this error is caused by installing Office 2007 and that file we replaced with the original on the CD gets corrupted - said SORRY - I have not done this at all so that was not how this file became corrupted.
We did do some other tests like not doing a normal start but I think if you simply replace the file mentioned here the error will go away.
How that helps.
Many thanks and Blessings
Comment by Ian — March 15, 2007 @ 5:43 pm PST
Hey team
Sorry to say - I spoke too soon about this error. It came back again and after speaking again with MS support all they could come up with is a clean install of XP Pro and Office 2003. Told them this is a clean install, then was politely told a supervisor would call me back in three working days. lol lol
Comment by Ian — March 15, 2007 @ 7:22 pm PST
I keep getting the error on my outlook 2003 saying - Reported error (0×80040154),internet mail is not registered properlyse reinstall and try again.
I have tried reinstalling several times, used detect and repair several times, but problems keeps occuring. All this started after me installing zonealarm pro and spyware doctor.
Tried you r suggestion but same error.
Any help appreciated. Really desperate having wasted 3 days on the trot.
Comment by Avi — March 29, 2007 @ 12:02 pm PST
Nice. I was able to revert to my Outlook profile after following your steps above and then Outlook cleaned the PST file for that profile and everything was all good. Great tip!
Comment by Chad — May 8, 2007 @ 7:22 pm PST
Running Windows XP Prof and Outlook 2003. Outlook keeps disappearing … not messaging saying it needs to close … just keeps diasppearing. Has anyone had this exact experience? Seems different that other postings on this question.
Very frustrating … thanks
Comment by JudyM — May 16, 2007 @ 8:39 am PST
I solved the problem … and wanted to share it in case it helps someone else. We were using an email scrubbing program which did a great job called ‘EmailProtect’ from www.ContentWatch. They are no longer distributing this program … which I found out was because it had a problem with Windows XP. As soon as I removed the program the crashing problem stopped. Too bad — it was a great program — but not that great if it conflicted with Outlook 2003.
Comment by JudyM — May 16, 2007 @ 7:37 pm PST
A SOLUTION!
I had a problem with Outlook 2003 crashing when an item was selected from a dropdown box.
The program would shut down and restart, but only when using the mouse to select.
The solution I found was:
The (hidden) WindowsShell.manifest file is missing.
Copy it from another workstation or server to the C:\Windows folder.
You will need to restart Outlook to see the result.
Good luck!
Ron
Comment by RonC — June 8, 2007 @ 2:58 pm PST
I had the same problem Outlook 2003 crashed and restarted every time I opened the program. It was after I added another HTTP e-mail account. I found a description of the same problem on and MS site and the suggested fix was to install XP Service Pack 2 which I am currently running.
I used your instructions to delete the e-mail account and it is running perfecty. You saved me frustration and ensured my toddler did not learn any new words he shouldn’t repeat.
Thanks,
Samantha
Comment by Samantha — June 22, 2007 @ 3:05 pm PST
Glad you and others have found this helpful, Samantha
Comment by TDavid — June 22, 2007 @ 4:23 pm PST
I think the technique is great, but so far has not worked for me. I get the Crash message signaling that something is wrong with the NTDLL.DLL file. Everything was fine and all of a sudden, now it will not start. I have read it has to do with the Anti Virus or another plug in, but the computer has been as it is for quite a bit. I tried refreshing the outlook installation, but that did not work either. I checked NTDLL but my other three computers have the same file and in the other two, Outlook works just fine. I wonder if I’ll be able to restore the app… Thanks for the info, though!
Comment by JIQ — August 9, 2007 @ 11:22 am PST
AWESOME! This is a great fix…well done!
Comment by Gaffer — August 10, 2007 @ 7:23 pm PST
A fix that was easy to follow and worked! thank you.
Comment by Samual — August 17, 2007 @ 2:32 pm PST
I tried this, and suggestion 14 (move all files, pst and otherwise), with no luck. So: no profile, no .pst and Outlook 2003 is still crashing on startup. It’s on for a while, but within a minute it wants to send an Error Report. If Microsoft wants me to upgrade to 2007 this is a crappy way to do it.
Comment by John B — September 8, 2007 @ 8:01 pm PST
I found the problem with my installations: Cloudmark. About a month ago (08/07) a conflict developed between Cloudmark, the best anti-spam program I’ve found, and Outlook. My problem started with Outlook 2003 and continued after upgrading to Outlook 2007. Uninstalling Cloudmark seems to have solved the problem. Microsoft blames Cloudmark.
Comment by John B — September 9, 2007 @ 2:16 pm PST
It is a shame that even after I upgraded MS office with the service pack 2, to try and resolve the Outlook program crashing after it was opened didn’t help. I recreated a new user profile (as you described it) and imported all my email to the new profile and voila hey presto it worked.
Thanks
One thing strange was that I had Bit defender anti virus program and while installing MS office service pack 2 it somehow uninstalled the anti virus program. this was initially a problem when Outlook crashed Bit defender antivirus was trying to resolve it but couldn’t. It’s not too serious as i will reinstall the program. it was just strange that it could have come up to try to resolve a problem in Outlook.strange things happen in Windows and Office.
Clive
Comment by Pentium — September 21, 2007 @ 4:57 am PST
deleted outloolk1pst file. outlook is now running on outlok.pst. I had several folder taps with many e-mails in the “all mail folders” under personal folders that arent there on the outlook.pst file. How can I recover and reset outlook to run of the 1.pst
Comment by Eric — October 7, 2007 @ 4:17 pm PST
I was thinking about switching to mozilla Thunderbird, until I was this article. Thanks TD.
For some of you who has multiple email accounts and didn’t want to reconfigure them all over again, you can try this approach:
- on step. 5, instead of selecting “Add”, try “Copy”
- restart Outlook with the new copied profile
if you like the name of your old profile, you can do this:
- remove the old profile (after you copied it, of course)
- copy the new profile and type in the old profile name
- you know what to do next …
Harry
Comment by Harry Soehalim — October 26, 2007 @ 5:00 pm PST
It worked. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!
Comment by Tony — March 14, 2008 @ 9:12 am PST
Figured I would add to the good suggestions here. I do support and I find that a good fix for when Outlook is eating up alot of CPU delete the C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\outcmd.dat file. It becomes corrupt ALOT and deleting it seems to fix alot of problems. When you re-open Outlook it recreats the file.
Comment by WonderMel — May 9, 2008 @ 9:39 am PST
Thanks! I’m at a corporation, which runs Outlook as “the” email program, and have repeatedly used your solution to fix Outlook every time it corrupts its profile.
Comment by Connelly — June 12, 2008 @ 4:54 pm PST
First I would like to thank-for for doing this for free because I wasted close to $500.00 with those MF@MS and it still was not working. Im the President/CEO of Par-lay Man. Ent, Inc. If you ever need tickets to a game or concert let me know and my office will make it happen. Once again thank-you. You can check me out on myspace.com/mrparlayman
Comment by Keith Brown — October 9, 2008 @ 7:23 pm PST
Greetings. I have had this problem since uninstalling Off 1007 and re-installing Outlook 2003. I have tried the renaming of the msmapi file, and creating a new profile, as well as installing Office SP2 file. I’m stumped. It only seems to have a problem when I add an email account into the program. Without the email account, Calendar, Contacts work fine. HELP
Comment by Mikey C — November 11, 2008 @ 12:37 pm PST
Above post should read “…uninstalling Office 2007…’
Comment by Mikey C — November 11, 2008 @ 12:38 pm PST