1. Question Summary: 
I can't get Outlook to start after newly loading Windows XP OS and
Office 2002 on my laptop. When I try to start Outlook for the first
time, it hangs up. The following dialog box appears: "An extension
failed to initialize. Can?t open file: extend.dat. The file may not
exist, you may not have permission to open it, or it may be open in
another program. Right-click the folder that contains the file, and
then click Properties to check your permissions for the folder.)

2. Situation Details

a. I recently had the harddrive of my laptop replaced (old one died).
When the guy replaced it, he partitioned the drive into 3 partitions
of  C:(8GB), D: (8GB) and E: (64GB) (give or take) and used the
restore disk that came with my laptop to re-install XP Home on C:. My
plan was to intall only the OS on C:, install all applications on D:
and then keep all my data on E:

b. Once I got the laptop back, I installed XP Pro SP2(Academic
version, Upgrade version) on C: as a new install (not an upgrade).
After this, I installed apps on D:, including Office 2002. I recopied
my data from an external hard drive onto E:. During the course of
this, I also downloaded all critical updates for XP and Office and had
those installed. I also copied my old Outlook files from an external
hard drive over to a folder on E:.

c. Once I got all of this done, I tried to open the Office apps for
the first time and that's where the problems began. First I opened
Word and it gave me a few warnings that such-and-such file couldn't be
located or saved, but the Word went ahead and opened anyway after I
clickeed "OK". Excel and PowerPoint seemed to open with no problems.

d. When I tried to open Outlook though, it didn't work. It first had
me go through the email account set-up wizard and then after that,
when it was time to initialize and start, I got the following dialog
box pop up: "An extension failed to initialize. Can?t open file:
extend.dat. The file may not exist, you may not have permission to
open it, or it may be open in another program. Right-click the folder
that contains the file, and then click Properties to check your
permissions for the folder." I assumed that the first time I started
Outlook it would automatically create new files for me and then after
that I would replace them with my old Outlook files, but it didn't
seem to want to create these new files. When I navigated to the
location the should be in Windows Explorer
(c:documents&settings/username/local settings/application data/
microsoft/outlook), there were no files in the folder.

e. I clicked okay, then ?Personal Folders? box/window pops up:  "This
information service has not been configured. Select an existing file
to configure, or type the name of a new file to create."

f. I clicked OK, then a ?Create/Open Personal Folders File? window
pops up for me to select a personal file.

g. When I clicked Cancel, Outlook eventually closed after a few more
dialog pop-ups.

h. I removed and re-intalled Office on C: (same partition as the
OS)thinking that maybe that was the problem, but the same thing
happened.

i. I copied over my old Outlook .pst files from an external hard drive
to the correct folder on my laptop (c:
documets&settings/username/local settings/application
data/microsoft/outlook (or something like that).

j. I re-formatted C:, reinstalled XP Home, didn't reinstall XP Pro,
re-installed Office on C: and still the same problem. Copied my old
Outlook files over again and still the same problem.

h. On later tries, when the ?Create/Open Personal Folders File? window
pops up for me to select a personal file, I would select the
Outlook.pst file I had copied over. Also didn't work. Response was
"Properties for this information service must be defined prior to
use."

i. At this point I clicked OK and got "An error occurred in the folder
shortcuts file (.fav). Outlook will recreate the default folder
shortcuts. "

j. Clicked OK and got "Unable to open your default e-mail folders. The
server is not available. Contact your administrator if this condition
persists."

k. Clicked OK and got: "Would you like to open your default File
System folder instead?"

l. I clicked Yes and got "The file that stores information about views
or folders that contain files could not be opened. Do you want to
delete the file and create a new one? Views for folders that contain
items will still be available."

m. I clicked Yes and got: "The operation failed." Clicked OK and Outlook closed. 

n. It was kind of interesting because early on when I first tried to
open Outlook and it failed, I could see behind the dialogs that
Outlook had somehow actually found my old Outlook.pst file that I had
copied onto the E: drive, because I say a few emails previewed in the
Inbox before the whole thing would shut down! It somehow found this
file by itself, but then couldn't open it.

o. I also subsequently completely reformateed D: and E: so that they
are completely empty now and still have the same problem, except
nothing shows up in Outlook before it crashes.

p. Also, I noticed that all of the folders on C: are marked
"read-only" and I thought this was the problem, but after researching,
this seems like the normal default setting for folders?

q. Finally, after finding help on a similar problem on the Web, I
tried to clear the Outlook registry by using regedit and surfing to
the Outlook folder and renaming it Oldoutlook. Still didn't fix the
problem!

r. Another problem I ran into was that when Firefox was loaded on D:
it wouldn't open. I don't want an answer to this problem, but am
offering it as info in case it can help someone understand where I
screwed up. :)

s. I also tried all of these steps after reloading Xp and Office but
*not* updating them. Still no luck.

t. My setup: Samsung P-25 laptop, about 3yrs old; New 80GB Samsung
harddrive intalled to replace old 40GB that failed; individual user,
not part of a domain, etc.; Other software installed at one time (but
now all erased/re-formatted): Office; IE; Firefox; Avast; SpyBot;
AdAware; GradeQuick (grading software for teachers); drivers for
webcam, printer;

3. What I need in an answer:

b. How can I fix this problem? I am concerned because even after I
reformatted C: and reloaded everything I still had the same problems.
I prefer a "permanent" solution vs. a patch/"workaround". i.e., let's
fix the root problem so I don't have some other b.s. pop up later. :)


a. What is wrong? Why did this happen? I want to know how I screwed
up, so I don't do the same thing again with another computer. :)

Thanks for your consideration!

---

Clarification of Question by iambillgates-ga on 10 Aug 2006 17:10 PDT

Thanks for your comments, austingu-ga.

The problem seems to be though, that no extend.dat was/is ever
created! It doesn't exist in the folder where it should be and when I
search for it everywhere on my computer, the search comes up with
nothing. And yes, I have fold options set to view system files and
hidden files.

This is a detail I did'nt state clearly in my initial question: I
can't rename extend.dat because it doesn't seem to exist. Crazy! I'm
assuming Outlook should create it the first time it starts, but it's
not. It's like Outlook thinks it exists for some reason, but can't
find it. Which makes it sound like a registry problem? But when I
renamed the Outlook folder in the registry to oldOutlook, it still
didn't work.

Oh, also one other thing I tried that I didn't mention before was
going into Mail on the Control Panel, deleting the default Outlook
profile and creating a new one. But I couldn't create a new one. Same
type of problem.

Thanks for your consideration! :)

"An extension failed to initialize. Can't open file: extend.dat. The
file may not exist, you may not have permission to open it, or it may
be open in another program. Right-click the folder that contains the
file, and then click Properties to check your permissions for the
folder. You don't have appropriate permissions to perform this
operation."

Seeing that the user was an administrator it seemed more complicated
than a permission problem. What is the extend.dat file? It is a file
used to cache extensions built for outlook. Seeing that our users use
no extensions, the problem with the file could be fixed by either
deleting it or renaming it.

If hidden files and folders are not visible you will have to set your
explorer window to view those types of files. If you know how to show
hidden files skip "Viewing Hidden Files".

Viewing Hidden Files: 
To view folders and files that are hidden, from my computer, click
tools and then folder options. Click the view tab at the top of the
window. Scroll down to the option Hidden files and folders. Click the
option that says show hidden files and folders. Then click OK.

The Fix: 
Make sure outlook is closed and not running.  If you are viewing
hidden files and folders, use windows explorer to go to documents and
settings, then the folder of the user with the error. Next click Local
Settings, then Application Data, then Microsoft, and finally click and
go into the outlook folder. There is where you will find extend.dat.
Now from here rename the file from extend.dat to extendOld. Restart
outlook and send someone an email.

I love your nic iambillgates-ga !!!!!

Steph53 :)