Outlook freezes using exchange mailbox

NullZer0

I have a user connecting to an Exchange 2000 mailbox from Outlook 2003.

The mailbox is one that he has always used on his computer, so its not like he is adding a new mailbox.

Sometimes he reports that outlook freezes on him.

And sometimes gets a similar message to:

"Outlook was not shut down properly last time....."

I've taken a look and asked him to clear down his "deleted items" because there doesn't seem to be any problems with the install.

Apart from this he does receive alot of PDF's.

Anyone got any suggestions? - I mean I just assume that outlook will be slow if you have alot of mail, deleted items and attachements.

Cheers,

NullZer0

I've been Googling a bit more into this and haven't found anything too useful yet.

I'm starting to think that it can be taken as badly designed software on microsofts behalf.

Would appreciate any feedback though.

seamus

Does he have a lot of PST files? Also, is he connected to an Exchange mailbox or is he downloading his mail from Exchange via POP?

Also check out his temporary internet files. There's an interesting overrun bug which we encountered;

When you open a file directly from Outlook (instead of saving it first), it stores a copy in a hidden folder in the user's temporary internet files, with the same name as the file itself. We have MFD's which allow scan-to-email. The scan arrives in the user's inbox with the name "scan001.pdf".

When the user opens the first "scan001.pdf", it gets saved into the temporary internet files with that name. Then when the user receives another scan (same name, different file) and opens it, it goes into the temporary internet files as "scan001(1).pdf". The next one goes in as "scan001(2).pdf" and so on. One user received so many scans that he got to "scan001(99).pdf". Each time he attempted to open a scanned PDF file after this, Outlook got unhappy. It didn't crash, but did give errors. It was also deadly slow.

One quick dump of the temporary internet files later, and the user and his Outlook were happy and productive.

Not saying that this is your issue, but when you said "PDF" it reminded me of this one.

NullZer0

Interesting you mention that.

I cant get near his computer at the moment.

Will give your suggestion a go though, it may help - sounds like it could be the problem... as far as I can remember there were alot of PDF files.

Capt'n Midnight

are there any problems with the backup on exchange, we've had to recreate corrupt accounts before

do they use PST's or local OST - use the scanpst / scanost tools to check them out (from the not shutdown message)

how big is the mailbox in case you are hitting the old 2GB limit or even the 4Gb fat32 one

do you have any addons ?

try exporting the entire pst to a new pst and then swap the names over