Reinstalling or bailing on Outlook 2007
 

I have a PC at work that's had Outlook connection problems for the last 18 months, since we moved to Exchange. The problems are becoming more common. It used to be that a 500K attachment in a message or attaching an email message to a calendar entry would hang Outlook. Now it can hang when I send a 20 word message or create the simplest calendar entry. It only happens with this PC. I can access the same exchange account from another PC or another device with no issues. Other PCs on this network have no issues connecting to the remote exchange server. I can stop all the processes and services (except Outlook) and it still hangs. When it hangs, I have to stop the OUTLOOK.EXE process and restart Outlook. It gets going again after 6-8 tries; a single try used to be good enough. I was hoping to remove and reinstall Outlook but I can only do so through the MS Office interface (it's Office 2007, by the way). I don't trust that removing Outlook that way deletes the program from the PC - it probably just disables some office features. If it was a buggy installation, it will remain buggy.

Seems my options are:

1) Get a Mac - not likely. I have an iPhone which is my concession to Mac folk. But the iPhone connects with the Exchange server flawlessly.

2) Completely remove and reinstall Office. Is that possible or does the drive have to be wiped to ensure Office is truly removed?

3) Try Evolution, Thunderbird or Zimbra Desktop. I don't see native Exchange support nor support for .pst files. It kills the deal if I can't retrieve from or add to my trove of .pst files.

Thanks,
Sixto
87 300D^2

Are you using Cached Exchange Mode? If not, you should be. Otherwise, Outlook has to download each message every time you view it, rather than saving them on the local drive!

If the Exchange server isn't directly on your local network, you'd better connect to it via HTTP or HTTPS, otherwise connectivity will be slow if it works at all.

Yeah, it's possible to remove Office completely.

Remove 2007 and try a trial of Office 2010 (and OH G-D not the click-to-run crap install) and see if Outlook works there. From my experience, 2010 has been an actual improvment on previous versions.

As far as converting .pst files to Thunderbird, it's possible. Either upload the messages to an IMAP server, then pull them off via Thunderbird, or there are products out there that allow for a direct conversion.

Lastly, are your I.T. folk complete idiots?

Tried both ways, no difference. I can't qualify the issue as lack of performance. It works nicely when it does. The rest of the time I click save draft or send or drag a message to the calendar icon and Outlook hangs. It's hanging more frequently now but when it works it works well.

Tried both ways, no difference.

I assume Outlook 2010 works with older versions of Exchange. Is it a hassle to revert to 2007 when the 60 day trial period expires or if I decide it's not an improvement?

That sounds like more work than it's worth, and could kill trying another client.

Umm... most of that function is is performed by yours truly. The folks who manage the exchange server can't figure out what's going with the PC in question. A possible hint is that when we redid the exchange settings, it wouldn't save the account parameters because "Outlook was still in use" even though we stopped the OUTLOOK.EXE process in Task Manager. We were able to reset the account after rebooting.

Sixto
87 300D^2

Outlook 2010 works with Exchange 2003, not sure about older versions than that. It's possible to revert, no huge hassle -- if you're really worried, set a system restore point before installing 2010.

Lastly, did you try creating another user profile and running Outlook with that, pulling data into a fresh .pst file (cached/HTTP mode, naturally)? Also removing any add-ins that may be running.

You don't have to go through IMAP to convert PST to Thunderbird, just copy the messages back to the Exchange server, then download with Thunderbird - same as all messages.

I am using Outlook 2007 and it worked fine until -
I selected a document (large file) in 'MyDocuments' and right clicked and selected 'Send
to Email Recipient'
It went to my Outbox but appeared to be stuck there and not sent. Did not
appear in 'Sent Items' folder at all but I discovered that it did send, each
time I checked my email!
I have run a test on the account and it was good.
I have deleted the email account and setup a new one and same problem.
Re-boot etc. makes no difference.

I downloaded and installed Outlook 2010 60-day trial version. Or so I thought. It took a couple of hours and all I see is a half dozen Office 2010 tools and a 589MB entry in Add/Remove programs for Office 2010. I don't have other Office 2010 components. The Outlook 2007 icon launches Outlook 2007 as I remember it.

Thanks,
Sixto
87 300D^2

Did you do the full install, or the klick-to-run kiddie kloud krap?

It started with a 600MB application called X17-58144 downloaded to my PC. I don't know what the application accomplished but it took 2 hours to go through its process.

Sixto
87 300D^2

I think the kloud-krap installer is smaller, but I might be mistaken. Check if your computer miraculously acquired a Q: drive since you installed Outlook 2010. If yes, then you're on click-to-run. Uninstall and reinstall correctly.

Otherwise, look for the Outlook executable in the Programs folder on the C: drive and run it :)

c:\program files (x86)\microsoft office\office14\outlook.exe or
c:\program files\microsoft office\office14\outlook.exe

Blowing the dust off this file, there is a folder called c:\program files\microsoft office\office14\ which contains 126 objects totaling 76.2MB but there's no outlook.exe in it. There is such a file in c:\program files\microsoft office\office12\. I removed and reinstalled the Outlook 2010 trial version. Same thing.

[edit] I found this article - http://www.msoutlook.info/question/472 - which suggests I should first remove Outlook 2007. There is no such instruction in the Outlook 2010 trial version installation package. Now trying the Click-to-run suggestion...

Sixto
87 300D^2

Outlook 2010 hangs just like Outlook 2007. Dang! Let's see if takes longer to remove than to install.

Sixto
87 300D^2

Before removing 2010, try creating a new user account on the computer, creating a new Outlook profile, and seeing if it still hangs.

Also: how large is your e-mail account?
And how large is the inbox folder?

I'd save all of your files and bookmarks, etc. and then delete your user profile on the PC.

Then create a new one. Start and configure outlook by itself and see how it works before you attach any of the PSTs.

Folder size is 27MB, inbox is 18MB. Tons of pst folders.

I monkeyed with different profiles and other users in 2007 and 2010. Can't stop the hanging. I just reinstalled 2007 and created a profile from scratch. Still hangs.

FWIW, Chrome slows down when Outlook hangs. I know Outlook will hang if I touch it while Chrome is slow. IE isn't as much of a bellwether.

Sixto
87 300D^2