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From: Richard S on 16 Apr 2010 11:06
Since yesterday afternoon, Outlook has been starting up correctly, but then a
message comes on screen saying that a problem is preventing Outlook from
operating and Outlook will be closed. No specific problem is ever disclosed
and no subsequent "solution" is ever found. The program just closes. All
other programs seem to operate normally. Could this be related to the last MS
"update" on the 14th? It did work until the 15th. We tried exciting, to no
avail. I tried also starting it as Program Administrator, to no avail. We
made no changes to the PC, or Outlook.
Suggestions . . . short of reinstalling??
--
artful
From: VanguardLH on 17 Apr 2010 17:40
Richard S wrote:

> Since yesterday afternoon, Outlook has been starting up correctly, but then a
> message comes on screen saying that a problem is preventing Outlook from
> operating and Outlook will be closed. No specific problem is ever disclosed
> and no subsequent "solution" is ever found. The program just closes. All
> other programs seem to operate normally. Could this be related to the last MS
> "update" on the 14th? It did work until the 15th. We tried exciting, to no
> avail. I tried also starting it as Program Administrator, to no avail. We
> made no changes to the PC, or Outlook.
> Suggestions . . . short of reinstalling??

Yet tried loading Outlook in its safe mode that does NOT load any add-ons
that you installed and left enabled in Outlook?

outlook.exe /safe

Yet tried rebooting Windows into its Safe Mode (with networking) to ensure
some security software that you installed isn't interferring with Outlook's
operation?

Making no changes and claiming something happened "all of a sudden" usually
means you have leave auto-update enabled for Windows or your security
software (3rd party firewall w/HIPS, anti-virus, anti-spam, etc). You
configured the OS or apps to auto-update which means you let someone else
decide if and when to change the state of your host. Change Windows Update
to only *notify* you of updates and then YOU decide if and when to install
them. Your anti-virus program should be silent when it gets signature
updates but should prompt you when there is a program update for it, and
then you decide if and when to install the *program* update which might
change the behavior of that software.

Might be time to consider backing up your host and how often to backup.
System Restore points only provide a minimal snapshot of your host and
rarely work to get your host back to the exact same state it was in before.
Look at imaging software. Configure a backup schedule that periodically
saves a full image along with daily incremental image backups. Then when
something goes haywire with your host, you can restore the image of your OS
partition back to its state for when it was working how you like. For any
data files that changed after that backup date, you can still recover them
from any backups made after the restore date. Backups aren't just for
recovering your data files. They are also for recovering the state of your
host. Logical backups (that simply copy files) will not restore the *state*
of your host. You need to use imaging software. You don't need to save a
full sector-by-sector image of the OS partition. A logical image is all
you'll need, and that can be a full or incremental image (because
incrementals use far less disk space but the longer the chain of
incrementals after a full image backup means the more vulnerable is that
chain to breaking).
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