The problem you have encountered with Outlook Express is unfortunately
just one of many that affect users of this program. Almost all
OE-related problems stem from a form of corruption in one of the
database files used to store your mail and settings for Outlook
Express.
To fix your problem, try this first:
1. Since you are able to start up OE as long as you do not highlight
the message in question, please start up OE.
2. Turn off the preview pane if you have it turned on:
Go to the menu View > Layout... > Preview Pane, and uncheck the
checkbox for the preview pane.
3. Select the suspect e-mail in your Inbox, hold down the Shift key,
and hit the Delete key to permanently delete it (ie. it does not go to
your Deleted Items folder).
Note: If OE crashes when you select the e-mail even with the
preview pane turned off, repeat this step but this time select the
e-mail ABOVE the suspect e-mail, hold down the Shift key, then select
the e-mail BELOW the suspect e-mail, then with the Shift key still
held down, hit the Delete key to permanently delete all three e-mails.
4. Go to the menu Tools > Options > Maintenance > Clean Up Now... and
hit the Compact Now button to compact the folder.
5. Shut down and restart Outlook Express to see if the problem returns
for other messages.
-------------------------------
If the above does not work, and if you have already 'saved' all of
your important messages, then you can do the following to remove the
entire Inbox and recreate it:
1. Start OE, do not select any messages.
2. Go to the menu Tools > Options > Maintenance > Store Folder...
where you will see the current storage location for your Outlook
Express files.
3. Click with your cursor in the text box just to the left of the
drive letter, then drag to the right to highlight the entire path name
(to the end of the word "Express"), and hit Ctrl-C on your keyboard to
copy this to the clipboard.
4. Open up Internet Explorer, click in the Address field at the top of
the window, and paste (Ctrl-V) the path into there, and hit Enter;
your PC should display the contents of this folder location.
5. Right-click on the file "Inbox.dbx", and select Rename, and change
the file-name to "Inbox.mybackup".
6. Right-click on the file "Folders.dbx", and select Rename, and
change the file-name to "Folders.mybackup".
Note: the above two changes will cause Outlook Express to recreate
the default folder called Inbox, and the default Folder list. You
*may* need to recreate any special messaging handling rules that you
created in the past, if you used that feature of OE.
---------------------------
If neither of these approaches solve your problem, just let me know;
there are other methods to try as well, but because they require that
you edit your Registry, I will hold off on mentioning them until we
know that you need to.
Please let me know how you make out with this.
Thanks,
aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher |
