Cannot open the Outlook window – what sort of error message is that?

I’m actually enjoying Outlook 2007 on my desktop, especially since applying the February patch. It opens in a couple of seconds even from cold. I’m running on Vista 64-bit, and not using cached Exchange mode.

Until today, that is. Started Outlook and got this bewildering message:

This Microsoft article suggested I might not have a default gateway. That was nonsense; so I opened Mail setup (I can get to this through the Properties of the Outlook shortcut), clicked Show Profiles, added a new profile and set the new one as default.

Outlook works fine now. I’m not impressed with the error message though.

Update

While using a new profile works, there is an easier fix as noted in many of the comments to this post. You can run Outlook with the /resetnavpane argument. Here’s the step by step:

1. Press Windows key and R together to open the Run dialog.

2. In the Open field, type:

outlook.exe /resetnavpane

image

Note: there is a space between outlook.exe and /resetnavpane. There are no other spaces in what you have to type.

3. Click OK. Outlook should open.

Helpful post? Sponsor ITWriting.com for ad-free access to the site

404 thoughts on “Cannot open the Outlook window – what sort of error message is that?”

  1. I had read this fix and tried it several times with no success, then I read that there is a space between exe and / (something that the other sites had failed to point out, and it worked first time! Thank you so much!

  2. Hi,
    I am getting msg “Cannot start Microsoft offfice outlook.Cannot open the outlook window.the set of folders cannot be opened.The information store could not be opened ”
    Please tell me how to fix.i have done outlook.exe /safe and outlook.exe /resetnavepane alos but nothing happened.Its my company account . please help!!

  3. I tried the same things and nothing worked. Tried outlook.exe/resernavpane with space, without space, downloaded the program twice and nothing happened. I’ve been like this for months now and can’t get any help from microsoft unless I pay them bucko money. Anyone knows anything else to do??? I looked for scanpst.exe and can’t find the file either. I have carbonite so I hope the file is there but without being able to open Outlook I believe it doesn’t matter even if I find the file. Help!!!!!

  4. Thanks for the pointers but NOTHING worked for me until I started Outlook in Safe:3 mode.

    This still gave me an error message about about OUTLBAR.INF, but at least it now runs and I was able to import from my old pst file

  5. I am in the same boat as Connie and a few others where the outlook.exe /safe and or outlook.exe /resetnavpane isn’t working.. my issue stated when tech serv loaded a new MD Security patch and crashed the exch server. When that was back up the solution to resync was to delete the ost file and the profile.. when that fif not work for resyncing I just deleted the exchange profile thinking to reinstall.. not I cannot open outlook even when I restore to an earlier version (from backup) .. HELP!!!!

  6. Amazing! Had the same problem and now solved! Save us the hassle of going to any IT Shop where they will charge you to perform such simple task. Thank you for the being soo generous!

Comments are closed.