Problem with Outlook 2003 pst file

  • Thread starter Thread starter Charles W Davis
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Charles W Davis

I am attempting to help a computer club member. I received a call yesterday
that he couldn't open Office Outlook 2003 on a Windows XP SP 2 system. I
dropped by and found that when one attempted to open Outlook, a message
would appear saying that there was a conflict between Outlook and WinFav Pro
the system would open the Norton Web site. He has recently installed Norton
360.

The Windows XP system does not have WinFax Pro installed. The a message
would be received that stated that the pst file hadn't been closed properly
and it would look for errors and find some stating that I should run
scanpst.exe

I found that the member had thought he had reinstalled Office 2003, where he
had actually installed Office XP (2002). I uninstalled 2002 and installed
2003.
Scanpst took 45 minutes to run on his 1,784,473 KB PST file. At about 45% of
the 8th scan, the Scanpst.exe would become unresponsive.

I copied the pst to my USB Flash drive and came home. I placed the pst on my
Win XP system. On the fifth pass of Scanpst.exe, I finally was able to
complete repair. I have read posts where and MVP asked if Scanpst.exe was
run more than once. So I ran it again-no problems found.

Today I returned to his home and started with Office Update. 11 updates were
applied. Windows XP was up-to-date. Before doing anything more, I ran
HijackThis. The automated analysis was absolutely clean.

I created a folder in My Documents and named it Outlook PST. I copied the
pst to this folder. Opened Office Outlook and chose Open from the File drop
down menu and chose Outlook Data File...
I browsed to the cleaned pst and continued. Nothing opened. The only
personal folders file is called "Recovered Personal Folders" There is
nothing in it.

I've run out of ideas. Any thoughts?
 
Completely uninstall Norton and then reboot Windows.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, Charles W Davis asked:

| I am attempting to help a computer club member. I received a call
| yesterday that he couldn't open Office Outlook 2003 on a Windows XP
| SP 2 system. I dropped by and found that when one attempted to open
| Outlook, a message would appear saying that there was a conflict
| between Outlook and WinFav Pro the system would open the Norton Web
| site. He has recently installed Norton 360.
|
| The Windows XP system does not have WinFax Pro installed. The a
| message would be received that stated that the pst file hadn't been
| closed properly and it would look for errors and find some stating
| that I should run scanpst.exe
|
| I found that the member had thought he had reinstalled Office 2003,
| where he had actually installed Office XP (2002). I uninstalled 2002
| and installed 2003.
| Scanpst took 45 minutes to run on his 1,784,473 KB PST file. At about
| 45% of the 8th scan, the Scanpst.exe would become unresponsive.
|
| I copied the pst to my USB Flash drive and came home. I placed the
| pst on my Win XP system. On the fifth pass of Scanpst.exe, I finally
| was able to complete repair. I have read posts where and MVP asked if
| Scanpst.exe was run more than once. So I ran it again-no problems
| found.
|
| Today I returned to his home and started with Office Update. 11
| updates were applied. Windows XP was up-to-date. Before doing
| anything more, I ran HijackThis. The automated analysis was
| absolutely clean.
|
| I created a folder in My Documents and named it Outlook PST. I copied
| the pst to this folder. Opened Office Outlook and chose Open from the
| File drop down menu and chose Outlook Data File...
| I browsed to the cleaned pst and continued. Nothing opened. The only
| personal folders file is called "Recovered Personal Folders" There is
| nothing in it.
|
| I've run out of ideas. Any thoughts?
 
There were problems reported, some month(?) ago with msgs regarding WinFax
Pro, even apparently when no Symantec products were installed.
The problem only affected some PC's, no fix/cure was posted but MS was
apparently aware & investigating
 
Charles W Davis said:
I found that the member had thought he had reinstalled Office 2003,
where he had actually installed Office XP (2002). I uninstalled 2002
and installed 2003.
Scanpst took 45 minutes to run on his 1,784,473 KB PST file. At about
45% of the 8th scan, the Scanpst.exe would become unresponsive.
Click to expand...

The size of the PST concerns me as well. ANSI PSTs can start acting flakey
at around 1.5GB no matter which version of Outlook is accessing them.
 
Brian Tillman said:
The size of the PST concerns me as well. ANSI PSTs can start acting
flakey at around 1.5GB no matter which version of Outlook is accessing
them.
Click to expand...
Brian,

Is there a way to reduce the size. I know that he had 1,968 entries in the
"Deleted Items" folder. I can't remember some things, but that number
stuck!!
 
You can reduce the size it by deleting some or all what is not needed from the default folders like Inbox,Sent,Delete
 
Peter,

I will do that once I can get Outlook to open the Outlook Data file. Is
there a way if, I can't get Outlook to open the file after I remove Norton
360?

You can reduce the size it by deleting some or all what is not needed from
the default folders like Inbox,Sent,Delete
 
I have successfully uninstalled Norton 360 and installed AVG Anti-virus. I
still cannot get Outlook 2003 to Open the Outlook Data File.
 
I finally figured it out. I searched for *outlook.pst I found two others. I
changed the names, and was able to open the Outlook Data file that
scanpst.exe had struggled with over the past few days. When Outlook opened
the PST, all data was contained in a Folder called Lost data, several
folders Recovered data 8011, Recovered data 8012. One contained the enormous
mess of deleted items which I truly deleted. One was the Inbox folder, and
all was moved to the inbox, the calendar was also there.

Once again, perserverence paid off. Our club member will have an operating
computer when I deliver it tomorrow.
Thanks for your help.
 
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