As you know, “native” Microsoft email clients in the form of Outlook and Outlook Express programs quite often behave rather capriciously, which makes it impossible not only to use them, but also to start applications. That is why Microsoft Outlook or a similar express client does not start and how to eliminate unforeseen crashes or errors, we will further examine it by looking at a few typical examples. And for starters, let's determine exactly the possible situations when, for some reason, the operation of these applications is disrupted.
Key Issues with Windows Embedded Mail Clients
As a rule, among the most frequently encountered problems are the following:
- programs do not start at all (most often after unforeseen crashes of the operating system or emergency termination of their work);
- Outlook does not start processing correspondence or the process freezes;
- applications do not respond to user accounts;
- programs do not connect to the Internet or other utilities, etc.
Naturally, there may be other cases, however, the above error options are the most common.
Outlook does not start: the easiest way to fix the problem
We will consider the first three problems, since in the last indicated variant of the problems a lot of additional steps will have to be performed, for example, to connect applications to the Exchange utility (here you will need to check at least the version compatibility of the installed software and set the correct parameters for all programs). First of all, let’s dwell on the situation when Outlook does not restart after unforeseen malfunctions and its abnormal termination. Why it happens? Yes, just because the process associated with the mail client is still active.
To fix it, go to the "Task Manager", find the process there with the same name of the program and use either the button to remove the task or a similar item in the PCM menu on the selected process. After that, it is advisable to restart the computer. Now you can try to restart the application.
If it still does not start, restart it again, and then start the mail client in safe mode using the Run console for this with the Outlook / safe command. It may well be that the program will start.
Add-on Actions
If you see that Outlook does not start in normal mode, but can only start with a secure one, it makes sense to check some add-ons activated in the program by default.
To do this, log into the client with a safe start, go to the settings section, use the add-ons item, and in the window on the bottom right, specify the display of add-ons for controlling COM elements. After clicking the transition button, a complete list with add-ons will appear in front of you. In it, turn off all the elements (do not delete them, just clear the checkboxes), save the changes, exit the program and try to run it again in normal mode.
Check and restore files
However, quite often you can meet problems that appear precisely at the stage of processing incoming and outgoing messages. It is believed that this is due to damage to OST and PST file formats. They need to be checked and restored. But what?
To do this, the MS Office office suite itself has a special utility called SCANPST (in order not to go through folders for a long time, just search for a file by name in the Program Files directory). After launching the application, you need to specify the location of the scanned objects (they are located in the mail client folder located in the user’s Documents directory). The check must be performed for each of the files of the indicated formats available there, using the start of scanning and their restoration upon completion of testing.
Sometimes, as some users claim, Outlook does not start due to the use of the wrong XML format (this is indicated in the message that appears). In this case, on the system drive, you need to open the user directory in the Users folder, go to the Microsoft folder through the AppData and Roaming directories, and then find and delete the profilename.xml file in the Outlook mail client directory. After that, you can call the program and enter your credentials again.
If the profile is not configured for Microsoft servers, you can experiment with the proxy settings in the program settings or in the Internet connection options. Finally, sometimes, although it looks completely ridiculous, you can temporarily disable the built-in Windows firewall.
Outlook Express does not start: the best solution to fix possible errors
As for the express client, by and large you can apply the above solutions, however, many experts, based on situations with errors due to the lack of Runtime Library components, recommend installing the latest version of the Microsoft Visual C ++ platform by downloading the installer from the official resource of the corporation .
There are more cardinal solutions, which boil down to removing Outlook Express from the computer completely and completely, using not system tools, but uninstall programs like iObit Uninstaller, and then reinstall the client.
Note: sometimes it is believed that accessing the section of programs and components in the "Control Panel" helps, but the application selects not deletion, but a change, after which you can try to restore it.