Outlook Express 6 hangs

[Tetsuo316]

Seemingly out of the blue, OE6 hangs when starting up and when performing certain actions like bringing up a contact's properties. It was working fine two days ago and I made no cahnges to anything in software or my hardware since then. Does anyone have any ideas as to what could be causing this?

 

[corkyg]

"... when performing certain actions like bringing up a contact's properties. "

By that do you mean a contact's properties from the address book? If that is the case, it could be that your address book file is corrupted, so referring to it causes an error. That can happen without any change in software or hardware as well.

Do you have a backup copy of your .WAB file? A good test would be to try and make on. If it is corrupted, it will balk at the attempt.

 

[Tetsuo316]

how does one backup his .wab file? is there a way to destroy the address book and just start a new one?

 

[corkyg]

The address book is normally located in C:\Program Files\Outlook Express, and is *.WAB. The file can be copied with Explorer and saved to a diskette. If you have more than one computer and want to "sync" your address book, that is an easy way to do it. Just make sure the same one is in all systems.

To test the condition of the file, open Outlook Express, then from the menu go FILE, EXPORT, and select Address Book. That gives you a couple of choices . . . take the Microsoft one and see if it will create the export file. If it can't read the source, it will not be able to do it.

To destroy the address back and create a new one, just delete that .WAB file (after you have copied it) and then let OE start over. If that still crashes or locks up the system, then the problem is in Outlook Express and you may need to reinstall it (goes with IE.)

Assume you are running XP? If so there are some more options depending on what you find out about the .WAB file. (System Restore to an earlier date when it was all working OK.)

 

[Tetsuo316]

ok, i deleted the .wab file from the directory, closed the program, but as i emptied the recycle bin i saw the file regenerate itself in the oe dir. secondly, oe would only let me export a csv file and no other option. thirdly, what exactly does the system restore thing do? does it delete new programs and everything or does it just mess with system settings? thanks for the help.

also, when i say "hangs" i don't mean that it pauses indefinitely, but that it now takes about thirty seconds to start up rather than the two that it used to take.

 

[Zenmervolt]

<< also, when i say "hangs" i don't mean that it pauses indefinitely, but that it now takes about thirty seconds to start up rather than the two that it used to take. >>

You uninstalled MSN Messenger didn't you. If you turn off the "feature" where OE automatically starts MSN Messenger, then load times increase by approx. 30 seconds. The simple workaround for me as been to rename the MSN Messenger folder (C:\program files\messenger) to something else (ie, C:\program files\messenger no start). That way the registry thinks that it's still opening MSN so it doesn't generate the long load times but since the folder is renamed, MSN never starts.

ZV

EDIT: The above is for Win XP.

 

[Tetsuo316]

absolutely brilliant. thank you very much, Zenmervolt, that was exactly it. smashing.