OT: Outlook 2002 failing after WSUS installed Office SP2

[Andrew H]

At one site, recently the few machines we have still running Outlook 2002
have been hanging since WSUS installed Office XP SP2 - it hangs showing the
Outlook logo immediately after starting. The Outlook 2003 users are
unaffected.

I know I could upgrade them to Outlook 2003, but they don't want to lose
their Word editing/spell-check functionality. I've temporarily given the
2003 users OWA as a substitute until I can resolve the problem.

Is anybody else experiencing this? I can't see anything like this mentioned
in the WSUS or Office NG's.

[Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]]

I'd start by making sure that all post-SP2 updates are installed - you
should be able to just look in the WSUS console to see.

Then, start Outlook with the /safe switch. You should be able to click
Start -> Run and type in "outlook.exe /safe" without the quotes, but if that
doesn't work, edit an existing shortcut to include the switch. If Outlook
starts normally, the problem is an add-in of some sort. Go to Tools ->
Options -> Other -> Advanced and disable all the add-ins. If Outlook starts
normally without /safe, re-enable them one at a time until you find the
culprit. You can skip obvious Microsoft ones such as any containing the
word "Exchange."

"Andrew H" <ajh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23CgrJH6...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

[SuperGumby [SBS MVP]]

I may be wr-r-r-r-r-r on this one but I'm wondering if the affected
mailboxes have ever been opened using Outlook 2003. There's an issue where
earlier versions of Outlook hang when attempting to acces a mailbox which
has been accessed from Outlook 2003, thing is I'm pretty sure (from bad
memory) that it was during exit of Outlook rather than starup.

I first came across the problem when we used O2003 to import 20 mailboxes
normally accesed via O2000, found a KB on it at support.ms...etc but I'll be
dashed if I can find it now.

"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" <gwdi...@NOSPAM.frontiernet.net> wrote in message
news:ueQPCW%23iGH...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

[Andrew H]

Thanks, Dave - I'll try that at next opportunity.

"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" <gwdi...@NOSPAM.frontiernet.net> wrote in message
news:ueQPCW%23iGH...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

[Andrew H]

Hi SG. I guess it's possible that some of the mailboxes have been opened
with 2003, but I don't think it's true in all cases. And the issue is
definitely at startup rather than exit, so it doesn't sound like quite the
same problem.

"SuperGumby [SBS MVP]" <n...@your.nellie> wrote in message
news:%23Blc18H...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

[Andrew H]

Hi Dave

Outlook runs in safe mode, but will not run in standard mode. No add-ons
were enabled.

And as WSUS updates are being made available round the office, so the
problem is spreading - I've now got a number of the Office XP machines
unable to connect to Outlook.

Regards

Andrew

"Andrew H" <ajh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:exzFGFgj...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

[Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]]

Safe mode just disables extensions such as 3rd party add-ins, and toolbar
customizations. If you can find what other app interacts with Outlook and
disable that, you should have a good start toward troubleshooting this.

Do you have anything like Acrobat or other 3rd party programs installed?

"Andrew H" <ajh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:u48dA26j...@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

[Andrew H]

Acrobat, yes - nothing else I can think of. However, I suspect that some of
the users concerned are those most likely to have installed unapproved
software off the Internet sometime in the distant past. They have been
scanned for malware and been cleaned up, but I guess it's possible there's
some sort of hangover that's still affecting outlook.

By the way, I did a complete uninstall/reinstall of Office XP - Outlook
still won't open other that in safe mode. OWA works fine.

"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" <gwdi...@NOSPAM.frontiernet.net> wrote in message

news:ORYuAB9j...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

[Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]]

Reinstalling Office seldom works since the uninstall leaves all the registry
entries, which then get reused by the new install.

I would try creating a new mail profile (CP -> Mail). You can either just
delete the existing profile and recreate it, or add a second one. If you
add a second, tell it to prompt for the profile to use, then select the new
one to see if it works. The only reason to keep the existing profile would
be if the user has a lot of customization. Otherwise, there's no reason to
keep it.

"Andrew H" <ajh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:OAeVXtFk...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

[Andrew H]

These aren't sophisticated users (gullible, yes - they have previously
installed dubious freeware), so there's no customization. Excellent
suggestion, I'll try it when I'm there again.

"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" <gwdi...@NOSPAM.frontiernet.net> wrote in message

news:%23HgYLqJ...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

[Andrew H]

Dave, I'm pleased to report that deleting and recreating the profiles sorted
out the problem. And fortunately, many of the panic calls from users that
"mail's not working" turned out to be truly trivial and totally unrelated to
this profile problem.

Thanks for the suggestions.

"Andrew H" <ajh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:ekCkBAUk...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...