AboutNancy Janyszeski Expertise Creating,sending, receiving e-mail, scheduling calendar items, tasks, using the journal, recurring appointments, default settings, Including Office 2007.
Experience I currently teach Microsoft Office 2003 and Office 2007, plus FrontPage and HTML at our Vocational Schools .
I am Microsoft Office User Specialist (MOUS) Master Certified and was certified as a MOUS Authorized Instructor. Instructional design and test writer for ActivTest, a division of Activ Training
Question QUESTION: Hi Nancy! I have a new Dell PC, Vista Home Basic and Outlook 2007. I transferred everything from my old PC over to this new one this week and am have problems with two items with Outlook. 1 - When I double click on an email it opens in another window, this I like but when I hit delete I expect the next email in line to pop up into that same window. I had it set up that way on my old PC and it was running Outlook 2007 also so I know it is possible but I can't find where to fix it. 2 - Every single time I open Outlook this error message shows "A data file did not close properly the last time it was used and is being checked for problems. Performance might be affected while the check is in progress." I ran across something that said not to use the red X in the upper right corner to close Outlook but to use file/exit instead and that the problem should go away but it did not work for me and every single time I open Outlook I get this message. Thanks in advance!
ANSWER: Gayle, from the Tools menu > Options > Preferences > E-mail options...
Select- Message handling - After moving or deleting an open item: Open the next Item
I found one possibility and that is to disable or remove the Google Bar.
So here's the bottom line: GOOGLE DESKTOP OUTLOOK TOOLBAR (GDOT). Disabling it, restarting Outlook (several times) and reenabling it fixed it.
Here are the details:
IT IS ALMOST ALWAYS GOING TO BE AN ADD-IN THAT GIVES YOU THIS PROBLEM
As you close Outlook, add-ins don't always gracefully "let go" of the data files.
The first step in troubleshooting this error is make sure OUTLOOK itself is closing properly. If it's not, then Outlook is the culprit. Open Outllok then open Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC) and click the PROCESSES tab. Look for outlook.exe. Exit Outlook and watch that the process does, in fact, disappear. Then re-open Outlook. Do you get the "Data file" error? If you get the error, and outlook DID close completely, that's a sign that it's likely an addin.
Next, open Outlook 2007 and go to Addins:
Choose Tools > Trust Center
In the drop-down list at the bottom of the dialog box, choose COM Addins and click the Go button.
Test your add-ins one at a time (I recommend GDOT first, since that was the culprit in this example). Disable one. Exit Outlook (making sure the process is cleared in Task Manager). Reopen. If you still get the error, reenable that addin and disable another. Repeat until you find the offending addin.
In my case, it was GOOGLE DESKTOP OUTLOOK TOOLBAR. Interestingly, it appears that just by disabling it (which stopped the error!) then re-enabling it later fixed the problem.
That reminded me about what is different about this computer versus my previous build. First, my previous build didn't have GDOT (sign #1) and the previous build worked perfectly. Second, this computer had GDOT installed FIRST, THEN Outlook 2007 was installed. Perhaps that is a clue. Especially since disabling, restarting Outlook, then reenabling seems to have fixed it.
That leads me to another lesson I've learned: Always install MS Office early in your "build" so that Add-ins are added and are added correctly. Lots of applications hook into Outlook and other Office apps: Adobe Acrobat, Mind Manager, Snag-It, Camtasia, Google Desktop Search, and so many others. I've run into several situations where removing apps that "hook in" to Office, then re-installiing them, fixed the problem.
A bit more detail, in case it helps you. My full experience in this particular troubleshooting exercise, in detail, was:
Disable GDOT
Exit Outlook
Restart
No Error
Exit Outlook
Restart
Got a warning that "Outlook encountered problems with GDOT. Do you want to disable the Addin?" Interesting... I HAD disabled it!... but I clicked YES to disable it. Figured if Outlook still thought it was having issues, I should agree with Outlook. Glad I did.
Outlook continued starting
No Error
Exit Outlook
Restart
No problem
Reenable GDOT
Exit Outlook
Restart.
No problem. seems to be fixed!
Hope this helps some folks!!
Published Friday, July 20, 2007 1:30 PM by danholme
Nancy
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Nancy,
I fixed problem number one right away, thank you for that!
But concerning the outlook error message. I checked and outlook itself is closing down completly so then I checked my addins and I am sorry to report that I don't have a Google Desktop Outlook Toolbar to "switch off". I took each addin off and restarted outlook and the error message still keeps coming back. Do you have any other suggestions?
Thanks
Gayle
Answer There are others with the same issue, I can only suggest doing a browser search on the exact error message.
Did you try disabling your virus protection Firewall for just a minute and restarting?
