WB Bug with Microsoft Outlook 2003

from Stardock Forums

Hi All:

Just figured out that WB 6 is causing me difficulties when trying to open Microsoft Outlook 2003. I have had this problem for a long time, but always thought it was my antivirus software. It usually takes three of four pushes on the Outlook icon (in quick launch, the start menus, or from my desktop icon) before the application will execute (and often it brings up the "Run in Safe Mode" window before execution, as it didn't open on previous attempts). On the rare occassion, Outlook will not open at all. Anyway, when I turn off WB6 and revert back to the Classic XP desktop, Microsoft Outlook 2003 opens perfectly every time. Does anyone else have this problem? Is there a known fix?

Thanks for any help!

Thunder_Struck

 

 

windowblinds
4,218 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top

Just curious - do you have Active Sync installed?

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Hi Daiwa:

Thanks for the responce. I actually don't have Active Sync installed as I don't use any portable devices with my computer (except for my Zen mp3 player). If I do install it, will that fix the problem? Or were you thinking having this installed might be causing the problem?

 

Thanks again.

 

Thunder_Struck

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Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top

Load up WB again & apply a skin, then launch Outlook.  If the window again fails to appear, open TaskManager & see if the outlook.exe process is running.  That may give a clue & might be helpful for any of the SD staff lurking.  Would also help to post your system information from the 'System info' tab of WB's Configuration dialog.

I've had no problems with OL2003 being skinned by WB (only skins the titlebar & borders, anyway) and haven't seen any other mentions of conflicts, but there are several Microsoft apps that have UI display issues under certain circumstances.  The app processes are there in Task Manager but no window is displayed.  MSPaint was a particular problem for me for a long time - I'd launch it, nothing would appear to happen, I'd launch it again, nothing would happen, I'd launch it a third time & maybe the window would open.  I'd do whatever I wanted to do in Paint (edit a skin image usually), close Paint & then discover 3 instances of mspaint.exe still running in Task Manager.  First time I thought to look in TM after repeatedly trying to launch Paint without a window opening there must have been a dozen instances of mspaint.exe running.  Never could isolate the cause or find any information about it online, except that the same thing had happened to lots of other people, too.  The only solution was getting a new computer (not for that reason, of course).

There was a problem with msconfig.exe's window not appearing due to a conflict with IconPackager's Repair Shell Icons function discussed in this thread.  If you have IP running, might be worth limiting shell icon repair to specific apps (not including OL2003) just to see.  There is an 'exclusion' function in the Repair Shell Icon dialog, which would be simpler, but it does not appear to work.

I was curious about Active Sync because I recently had to 'upgrade' to OL2003 on 2 machines in order to sync contacts with my iPhone & MobileMe (hate the OL UI, but what can you do).  I still have a Tungsten PDA for one specific purpose which requires Active Sync but I only have AS on one of the two.  Turns out Active Sync can cause OL2003 to remain running in memory after you've closed it and that began to happen on the machine with Active Sync immediately after I 'upgraded'.  It appears to be a problem if Active Sync is installed, whether running or not, at least on my rig.  The other computer has never had Active Sync installed and I've had no problems with 'missing UI' issues or failure of OL2003 or any other process to end when the Window was closed. The information I found indicated that there are other apps that may conflict and other reasons within OL's own settings for the failure of the process to terminate, particularly if you have it set to empty the Deleted Items folder on close.  Haven't seen anything on failure of the window to appear on launch, though.

In case there are other folks having problems with OL's process not ending when the app is closed, there is a nifty little System Tray utility that will let you kill it with 2 clicks - KnockOut.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Hi Daiwa:

 

Thank you for the detailed response. Much appreciated! Followed your instructions and reloaded WB6; attempted to run OL2003, but again, same problem. When I open Task Manager after trying to run OL2003, there are no instances of it running. So I don't think it is initialiasing at all. It is usually only a minor bug as I simply need to keep pressing the launch icon for OL2003 three or four times and it then usually runs (though not on all occassions). Anyway, thanks for the kind help!

 

Thunder 

Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Try this here open outlook while wb6 is loaded and go to the help tab at the top.

From there select detect and repair. Be sure that restore my short cuts is checked and if you want to completely clean it up in case there maybe a adin loaded that is causing the problem check the discard my customized settings box also.

Thus this should cleanup any bad short cuts or add ins placed there by another program.

All in all I'll blame office for the problem. It does stupid stuff for no reason sometimes.

If that fails or you get an error while doing the repair and it does not complete. Best to reinstall your office again.

May be a good idea anyway to just reinstall office and be done with the problems.

good luck