Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations Chriss Miller on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
Outlook 97 hangs when retrieving mail
- Thread starter bpear
- Start date
It depends on the size of the mail you are downloading. I would suggest that you test it by sending a little message to yourself and see if Outlook hangs on you. If it doesn't then I would point the problem to the files that are coming down.
If you are having problems getting into Outlook all the time, it might have become unstable and require reinstallation. Or then again, it could require an upgrade to a later version of Outlook or Office. I run Outlook 2000 on a Win98 PIII 550 128RAM and everything goes nicely.
Also, have a look at the other Windows applications on your PC. If you run Word 97 and run into problems then it probably is with the version of Office you have.
Good luck
Terridian.
If you are having problems getting into Outlook all the time, it might have become unstable and require reinstallation. Or then again, it could require an upgrade to a later version of Outlook or Office. I run Outlook 2000 on a Win98 PIII 550 128RAM and everything goes nicely.
Also, have a look at the other Windows applications on your PC. If you run Word 97 and run into problems then it probably is with the version of Office you have.
Good luck
Terridian.
petermeachem
Programmer
What, do you mean that Office 97 wears out after being used for a while. Does the software get a sort of mid life crisis and feel it can't cope any more so you have to use Office 2k.
I think the problem might be elsewhere. Sometimes reinstall has no effect as installers only overwrite older files, not corrupted new ones. Installing Office 2k would then 'fix' the problem. But I don't think even MS can bring out new versions fast enough to fix things this way.
The not responding message can mean 'actually I'm very busy at the moment', so it could be working albeit slowly on a big file.
Uninstall and Reinstall might help if there is actually something wrong.
Peter Meachem
peter@accuflight.com
I think the problem might be elsewhere. Sometimes reinstall has no effect as installers only overwrite older files, not corrupted new ones. Installing Office 2k would then 'fix' the problem. But I don't think even MS can bring out new versions fast enough to fix things this way.
The not responding message can mean 'actually I'm very busy at the moment', so it could be working albeit slowly on a big file.
Uninstall and Reinstall might help if there is actually something wrong.
Peter Meachem
peter@accuflight.com
Ha. I wish software was that much like life, then you could reason with it! The software company that I work for creates software for the Windows platform and at times our stuff conflicts with the Microsoft programs. I don't pretend to understand the dynamic of it but reinstalling Office after it has been jerking me around fixes everything.
As far as versions are concerned we were using Office 97 on Win 98 and we were getting problems left, right and centre. It worked for a while, then *poof* without any alteration to the O/S or any signifigant change to the spec of the PC it just started hanging up, loosing fonts, slowing the PC down, any number of access violations and violations of system integrity. Reinstalling it always worked. We have moved to Office 2000 and since then there have been no major issues.
I agree that reinstalling will only copy over a file if the file is newer than the one on the hard drive, but it will replace files that may have been moved into different directories or out and out deleted. Now you can probably argue "Why on Earth would a file just move itself!" and if you have used Windows for any length of time you should know that *anything* is possible.
Peter is right about that message in the task manager. Perhaps you should wait, go and make some coffee, have a chat over the water cooler and argue about the validity of golf-course business deals then come back and see if it is still not responding.
The obvious answer to this is to try it out. If it works, it works. If not, then try the other method. The only thing you lose is a bit of time.
Terridian
As far as versions are concerned we were using Office 97 on Win 98 and we were getting problems left, right and centre. It worked for a while, then *poof* without any alteration to the O/S or any signifigant change to the spec of the PC it just started hanging up, loosing fonts, slowing the PC down, any number of access violations and violations of system integrity. Reinstalling it always worked. We have moved to Office 2000 and since then there have been no major issues.
I agree that reinstalling will only copy over a file if the file is newer than the one on the hard drive, but it will replace files that may have been moved into different directories or out and out deleted. Now you can probably argue "Why on Earth would a file just move itself!" and if you have used Windows for any length of time you should know that *anything* is possible.
Peter is right about that message in the task manager. Perhaps you should wait, go and make some coffee, have a chat over the water cooler and argue about the validity of golf-course business deals then come back and see if it is still not responding.
The obvious answer to this is to try it out. If it works, it works. If not, then try the other method. The only thing you lose is a bit of time.
Terridian
DeanSpencer
MIS
The first thing I always check with Outlook is the .pst file. You can find out which one it is using by going to Tools-Services. Click on Personal Folder File and goto Properties. It should tell you the path and file name. Do a find on your hard drive for a program called Scanpst.exe and run it against your .pst file. Sometimes this will find errors that could be causing your problems. If that dosen't fix the problem then goto Control Panel(with outlook closed) and bring up mail and fax properties. Get all of your settings from each service and proceed to delete your profile. Go and add the profile back in and test Outlook again. Usually this will fix most of Outlook problems. If it dosen't, then delete the profile and uninstall Outlook and reinstall it again, then create your profile again.
Hope this helps..
Hope this helps..
- Status
Similar threads
