Hi all, After a lengthy hiatus, I have returned to the Afterdawn forums and I am in serious need of some help. I'll try to keep this breakdown brief but it's still quite lengthy. I am on Windows XP, and using Outlook Express 6. So, today I come downstairs and my dad tells me he can't open Outlook Express. I try to open it, the big blue Outlook Express Sign comes up, covering about a third of the screen and I can see the desktop in the background. I get the hourglass on the cursor, and outlook express just never loaded(the sign hangs there) I reboot, still the same problem. I do a quick google search, and find out that this may be caused by an malicious/infected/virus email. So I start up Outlook again, this time with task manager on, and I notice that the Mem usage continues to go up and up and up, and continues to go up, and maxes at around 800,000K. I drew the conclusion that maybe some idiot sent a huge email to the account, or it may well be a email that was sent, that may have messed up Outlook express. At this point I decided I would try to uninstall and reinstall Outlook in order to verify if this was indeed the problem. I backed up the outlook express files(i have all the .dbx files saved on a pen drive) by going to docs and settings,user,local settings, application data, identities, [numbers], microsoft, outlook express and copying. Then I google how to uninstall outlook, because I can't find an exe on my computer, and I find out it is one bad ass mother to uninstall. So I follow an instructional guide, which says to delete certain registry files etc. Then I find out that you can't just install outlook express on it's own. You have to install it as well as IE. As my dad is picky about change on the computer, I try to get the old IE 6 so i can keep outlook express 6. What resulted was me cocking up the uninstallation of IE 8, trying to install IE 6, but it told me it was not going to let me because it detected a newer version. What was even funnier is that now, I can't even start IE from the exe, it just gives me an error. I now have to start IE through a shortcut from a saved HTML, and then go from there. For some reason, I then clicked outlook express. It now works. However, now when I click file, import, to import the backed up .dbx, it won't let me and just shows a blank window. If anyone can tell me how to get my backed up files back in my outlook express, how to get my IE working again(not from a HTML shortcut) and how to get my outlook express to start working properly and fully functional, I would be extremely grateful! PS. Just to verify, I now have IE 8 and OE6.
Don't you have any system restore points available? Try restoring to a time before the original problem occurred. If it doesn't work, best bet may be to get the retail XP disk and do a repair install. This kind of install fixes the Windows components, but otherwise leaves your data and programs alone.
Hi dave, I gave the system restore a shot. I first restored to two days ago. I can now start IE from it's .exe and it's .exe shortcut, however for some reason it is still IE8 instead of the old IE6. In addition, OE6 still has the same problem and won't load. So, I then restored to a week before said problems, and I still have the same trouble. So the IE is fixed and working fine, but I am still at a loss as to what could cause the problems with OE6. Further advice would be appreciated, thanks!
A few suggestions. First try check disk. Open the CMD box and enter chkdsk c: /r It will do the check on the next reboot. Then try the suggestions here first: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/community/columns/oerepair.mspx Some more system-wide suggestions include: Run the command SFC /SCANNOW - it will check all protected files and replace any that are missing, or the wrong version. Download and run superantispyware and see if it finds anything: http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.html Run a full partition virus check using the tool of your choice. Bitdefender has a tool that runs out of Internet Explorer. Recommended. If all this fails to help, check the messages in eventvwr.msc and see if there is anything relevant.
EzyDuzIt, edit your sig to conform to forum specs ASAP. yours is 10 lines including the blank line. 1. Text-only signatures should have at most 5 lines of text.
