Access + Outlook Arn't happy together!

[MulLa]

Hi all,

Here's a weird problem that I've been hearing about from my reps.

We have this custom made Access program (not written by me) that allows the reps to place orders and e-mail them to the account people. There is this e-mail button in Access and it will then send the mail via Outlook.

I was told by the person that wrote the program not to have Outlook open when they are using this Access program, otherwise e-mail won't go through. So I relayed that to the reps and things seemed to be happening nicely.

Lately I have been told when reps to the following
1. Close Outlook (so they can load this Access program)
2. Loaded Access program (done their business)
3. Unable to open Outlook again

One rep told me that if she allow say 10 seconds between steps 2 and 3 she would then be able to reopen Outlook without a problem.

I've tried searching the M$ KB but doesn't seemed to help??!!

Any ideas? Could it be a badly done Access program?

Oh and btw they all have Windows XP and Office XP


Thank you

 

[flamingsouls]

That usually means that the access program still has a lock on the outlook exe.

 

[Kinesis]

Exactly, access initiated the EXE, and thus it still has control!

Wish I had the solution.....and easy one that is.

 

[stephbu]

Outlook has a similar behaviour if you stop and restart it in quick succession -

When you run the program it checks for an already running instance of the spooler.
Outlook.exe gets confused cos the spooler is 'running' so it thinks there is an instance.
The last fact is correct but infact the spooler is just about to stop - it was last told to shutdown
Outlook bails when the spooler stops.

You can observe some of this behaviour by watching in any task manager just how long the Outlook process lives after closure. The outlook window vanishes many seconds before total closure.

Probably the best to do if you can is keep Outlook running.

 

[MulLa]

Thanks everyone for your advice. Now I'll just have to let the reps know that they'll have to be patient!!!