Re: help on outlook express won't start

From: ray bowler (anonymous_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 05/12/04 

Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 23:09:37 -0700

The problem is mow fixed thanks to your reply. It appears
the anti virus software was conflicting with OE
>-----Original Message-----
>Chances are folders.dbx is corrupted. Try deleting that
file and then see if OE works then. After that do a File
| Folder | Compact all and points 2 and 3 below. See
point 8 for more details.
>
>steve
>
>"ray bowler" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
in message news:b1e501c43712$e2fc96c0$a301280a@phx.gbl...
>> When I try atrting outlook express it gets to a white
page
>> and then stops responding. The problem started after I
had
>> deleted a number of old emails suggesting a misaligned
>> register. I have tried a reinstall over the top but the
>> problem remains. I am running windows 98se and ie6. Any
>> solutions?
>
>
>
>1. Don't open attachments.
>
>Most computer infections are the result of the user
opening email attachments. The attachment usually
contains a virus or worm or trojan that infects the system
when it is opened.
>
>Because of this tendency of attachments to infect,
Microsoft has now set OE to block all attachments. See
>these articles for explanations:
>
>Cannot Open E-Mail Attachments in Outlook Express After
You Install SP1
>http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=329570
>
>OLEXP Using Virus Protection Features in Outlook Express
6 (Q291387)
>http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q291/3/87
.ASP
>
>Note that Microsoft does not send security patches in
email. See this article:
>http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/news/patch_hoax.
asp
>
>If you choose to adjust OE to allow attachments, make
sure you save the attachment to disk first and then scan
it with your antivirus software.
>
>The most significant thing you can do to prevent such
infections, is to educate yourself on what attachments may
constitute a threat to your system, and never open any
such attachments, no matter who they are from.
>
>
>
>2. Turn off Background Compaction.
>
>When a message is deleted, moved or marked as read in an
OE message file (dbx), then wasted space is generated in
that file, and the folder must be compacted to remove that
wasted space.
>
>By default, OE turns on a feature under Tools | Options |
Maintenance called "background compaction", which turns
itself on if the folders in your message store get too
much wasted space. This feature uses 100% CPU time and
slows down your system, while it is active. In addition,
if the process is somewhat interrupted, then the entire
message store can become corrupt.
>
>To prevent such corruption, turn off background
compaction under Tools | Options | Maintenance for each
Identity you have, and then compact manually and
frequently using File | Folder | Compact all. This will
make OE more stable.
>
>
>3. Turn off email scanning in your antivirus software.
>
>
>Antivirus software invades the Outlook Express program to
try and intercept (incoming and, in some cases, outgoing)
messages that might contain virus.
>
>The problem with this approach is that the antivirus
software can trigger the destruction of an entire message
folder or the entire message store, when it attempts to
remove a message containing a potential virus.
>
>To prevent the possibility of such destruction occuring,
turn off email scanning in your antivirus software. You
will still be protected against infection. If you attempt
to open a message attachment containing a potential virus,
then your antivirus software will recognize that your are
attempting to infect your system, and will block you from
doing so. The best practice on the user's part is to save
an attachment to disk and then scan it with the antivirus
software prior to opening it. Messages opened themselves
(if you have the latest security updates from Windows
Update) will not infect your system -- only attachments.
>
>You do not need additional email scanning on top of your
system being continuosly scanned by antivirus software, so
turn off email scanning to prevent destruction of your
message store.
>
>>From a post by Frank Saunders:
>
>>From
>http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/df0a595864594
c86852567ac0063608c/65434372961d321d8825687f000003f8?
OpenDocument&src=tr&Highlight=0,email,protection
>
>Disabling email protection does not leave you vulnerable
to viruses and
>malicious software in email. It is a separate layer of
protection in
>addition to Auto-Protect. Auto-Protect scans any incoming
files, including
>email, as they are saved to your hard drive. As long as
you keep your virus
>definitions up to date with LiveUpdate, and keep Auto-
Protect enabled and
>set to scan files as they are created or downloaded, your
system is fully
>protected.
>
>
>4. Recovering lost messages.
>
>
>The most significant contributors to lost messages are
described in points 2 and 3 above. Turn these options off
to prevent message store corruption.
>
>If you do lose your messages, you can try using my
DBXtract program to
>attempt to recover the lost messages. Note that dbx
files are hidden in
>Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
>http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/
>
>Alternatively one can also use DBXpress, which is faster
and more accurate than DBXtract,
> and it also has the capability of reading directly from
the disk and bypassing the file system.
>http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/
>
>If you have upgraded your version of IE and OE or your OS
version, and all
>your messages are lost, then see this article (note that
the technique in
>the article does not only apply to the issue addressed in
the article
>title):
>
>OLEXP: Mail Folders, Address Book, and E-mail Messages
Are Missing After You
>Upgrade to Microsoft Windows XP
>http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-
us;313055
>
>If File | Import | Messages does not work, ignore the
error message, which
>is erroneous in itself, and try one of the following
techniques to get your
>messages back:
>a. Right click on each dbx file or a selection of them
and go to Properties
>and clear the read only attribute of the files. Then try
File | Import |
>Messages again.
>b. Import the dbx files individually. See the last
paragraph on this page
>for how to do that:
>http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx
>c. As a last resort use DBXtract or DBXpress
>http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/ or
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/
>
>See also:
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/problems/bugs.htm#mailgone
>
>
>5. How does one reinstall IE and OE?
>
>This article seems to work for other OSs than just XP:
>
>How to Reinstall or Repair Internet Explorer and Outlook
Express
>http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-
US;Q318378
>
>See point 11 below first.
>
>
>6. How does one backup and restore or transfer OE
messages and settings:
>
>See: http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/backup/index.htm
> http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx
>
>Note that there is also a link in this article to MVP
David Guess's free
>OEBackup programs (www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/)
>
>
>
>7. Links in email don't work:
>
>see the links on this page
>
>http://www.oehelp.com/
>
>
>8. Outlook Express is slow.
>
>See the various performance issues and how to address
them on this page:
>
>http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/problems/performance.htm
>
>
>9. Outlook Express won't start.
>
>This is usually due to a conflict between what is
recorded in the registry
>and what is in the message store. Often, one can fix
this problem by
>deleting folders.dbx. If that doesn't work, then try
moving all the dbx
>files to another directory and see if that fixes it.
Alternatively, see
>these articles and also point 4 above:
>
>http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/problems/performance.htm#no
start
>
>http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q245/4/19
.asp
>
>
>10. Address book information:
>
>see The Windows Address Book
>
>http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/files/wab.htm
>
>
>11. Installation issues:
>
>Most of the problems with a faulty installation are due
to other programs
>running during the install and interfering with the
updating of necessary
>files. Antivirus software is notorious for this. To
minimize such
>interference, in Win98, WinMe, and WinXP go to Start |
Run and type msconfig
>and disable all startup items and non Microsoft
services. Then reboot.
>Then proceed with the installation. Startup items can
then be re-enabled.
>
>For additional info see:
>
>Win98: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?
scid=kb;en-us;281965&Product=w98
>WinXP: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?
scid=kb;en-us;310560&Product=winxp
>
>Since Win2000 does not have msconfig, one has to manually
go to this
>registry key:
>
>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersi
on\Run
>
>You can export this key and then delete all values under
it. Then disable
>all antivirus services under Computer Management |
Services and then reboot.
>Then install. After the installation you can import the
key back into the
>registry to restore the values and re-enable the services.
>
>
>12. Screening unwanted email and Spam
>
>Everybody gets unwanted email these days. Much of this
email is either
>trying to sell you something you probably don't want or
else is trying to
>infect you with a virus via an email attachment. What
can you do?
>
>a. Never open an attachment. First save an attachment
to disk and then
>scan it with your antivirus software to ensure it is not
infected (make sure
>your antivirus software definitions are up to date). If
the attachment is
>from someone you don't know, don't even bother opening
it. Its not worth
>it. See also point 1 above.
>
>b. Screen email. Disable the Preview Pane (you can put
a button on the
>toolbar to turn this on and off). Then go to View |
Columns and enable most
>of the headers. That way you can scan the headers and
pick out the various
>obvious unwanted mail. Once you find messages that you
don't want to open,
>select the headers of those messages without opening the
messages and
>perform a Shift-Delete to permanently remove them from
the folder. Once
>they are removed, they will no longer be accessible, so
don't do this on
>messages you might wish to keep.
>
>c. On messages left that might be worth opening, go to
Tools | Options |
>Read and check the box that says "read all messages in
plain text"
>(available only with IE6 SP1 or WinXP SP1 and higher).
Reading in plain
>text prevents any returns to the spammer's server, so
your email address
>cannot be validated in that fashion. In addition, it
prevents malformed or
>malicious HTML code from executing. If you find the
message is worth
>viewing as HTML, then you can go back to Tools | Options
| Read and uncheck
>the option to read in plain text only and then reopen the
message to view it
>as HTML (note that you can put this button on a toolbar
with OETool
>(www.oehelp.com/OETool/). You can also use OETool to
view the message details without having to open the
message. You can also use the "Compact Current Folder"
button after deleting to shrink the file size.
>
>d. If you get unwanted email repeatedly from the same
source, you can set
>up message rules to block out some of these messages.
See the help file in
>OE and also
>
>http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/tips/rules.htm
>
>and
>
>http://www.mindspring.com/~oe_oh/message_rules.htm.
>
>
>e. If you find a message that is spam and that offends
you or is deceptive,
>go to Message | Forward as attachment and send it to
uce@ftc.gov .
>
>The US Federal Trade Comission is launching a major
crackdown on deceptive
>and offensive spam. Visit their site at www.ftc.gov/spam
for more info.
>
>
>13. Messages appear blank
>
>>From a post by Frank Saunders:
>
>Several possible causes and therefor several possible
fixes:
>1. Go to Start | Run and type
>regsvr32 inetcomm.dll
>and press <Enter>
>2. Go to Tools | Options | Read | Fonts and set Western
(ISO) as the
>default.
>3. Clear Temporary Internet Files and the Temp folder.
>4. Turn off email scanning in your anti-virus.
>5. Someone else reported that re-installing OE using
method 2 in this
>article fixed the problem:
>How to Reinstall or Repair Internet Explorer and Outlook
Express in Windows
>XP
>http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=318378
>Method 2 works on earlier versions of Windows.
>6. Eliminate any scumware.
>See
>Dealing with Unwanted Spyware, Parasites, Toolbars and
Search Engines
>http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm
>especially
>http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm#Coolwebsearch
>
>Note that AdAware and SpyBot S & D will each catch some
things the other
>won't. Also, each needs to be updated before every use,
even when just
>downloaded. There's also a lot more to do than just
those two programs.
>CWShredder is also available here:
>http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/cwshredder.zip
>**Post your HijackThis log to
>http://forums.spywareinfo.com/ or the Spyware forum at
>http://forum.aumha.org/ for expert analysis, not here.**
>Alternative download pages for Ad-Aware, Spybot,
HijackThis and CWShredder
>may be found on this page:
>http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm.
>If trying everything at that site does not fix the
problem please post back
>in the same thread.
>
>
>
>
>I've left off some issues, but I believe these address
the most
>common problems that users encounter with OE. In
addition, please check the
>websites of the individual OE MVP's that address other
issues not listed
>here:
>
>
>Tom Koch:
>http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/
>
>David Guess
>http://www.mindspring.com/~oe_oh/
>
>Jim Pickering
>http://home.comcast.net/~jimpickering/
>
>Frank Saunders
>http://www.fjsmjs.com/OE/index.htm
>
>and my site at http://www.oehelp.com
>
>
>If you don't find your problem addressed, then feel free
to post a question
>in these newsgroups and we will be more than happy to
respond and attempt to
>help. Just go to Tools | Accounts | Add | News and add
msnews.microsoft.com as a newsserver and then you can
address your question to the appropriate newsgroup.
>
>
>.
>