microsoft, windows

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

404 Comments

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.

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

  3. I want to thank Tim and everyone here who posts such easy-to-follow solutions. In a few short minutes, you helped me to restore Outlook to full functionality.

    I appreciate everyone’s know-how and support.

    Kind regards,

    Regina

  4. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU…Really appreciate your help I wasn’t sure how to carry on with my day.

  5. I should have read up from the bottom. Copying the profile took 2 seconds and worked perfectly.

    Thanks!

  7. Thank you SO much!!! I’ve spent hours looking around for a fix with not much luck. I finally read your fix and the further down explanations on how to get to the places you said (running Vista 32) and it worked. Nothing I could find on Microsoft even addressed the problem. Just hope it doesn’t happen again!!

  8. Thank you Mark (entry 7). Your suggestion worked for me, running Outlook 2007 on Vista. And, as others found, when I followed the instructions offered by Microsoft (I tried the Regedit approach) it didn’t work. Thank you so very much Mark, et al.

  9. Thanks folks for your help, this has saved my bacon also. I’m self employed and rely heavily on my emails for job details and this could have caused me a huge headache and cost me loads if I was unable to sort it. So a massive thank you to all those that came up with solutions, worked a treat.

  10. Many many thanks for sharing this. I ‘m a dummy and didn’t even know how to launch the “run” command, so I just copied the
    outlook.exe /resetnavpane in the “search” window at the left bottom of the Vista Start window … the command appeared , clicked on it and Outlook worked again.
    My problem also occcured after I had launched an update of Windows Vista …I thought they did that to resolve problems , not to create new issues.

  12. Tim, you’re an angel! I love you!!! Outlook crashed last week and I tried a ton of stuff to fix it, gave up, went to Windows Mail, HATED IT, and decided to give fixing Outlook one last try. I found your brilliant and simple solution and I’m back up in 5 minutes.

    You rock!!!
    Charlene

  14. You are the best. This worked:

    Run outlook.exe /resetnavpane

    I tried defrag, Spybot, Norton and Outlook repair from the original disks and none of it worked.

    I also had this problem after installing IE 8. You Rock. Thank you all!

  15. Thought I was a gonner! opened START, clcked “Run”, copied & pasted
    “outlook.exe /resetnavpane”. Then opened Outlook, “File”, “Import and Export”, over to the right to “Outlook”, highlighted “Import from another program or file”, clicked “Next”, highlighted “Personal Folder File (.pst), clicked next, and fifteen minutes later I had all mail going back to 7/25/09 (755total), plus everything saved in my personal folders.

    Thank you, Thank YOU!, THANK YOU!!

  16. Hi
    I have tried to add a new profile but i can find how to default back to the new one. Do i have to delete the original profile?

    this has been really helpful but i am not sure i have done it all correctly.

    Pleeeease can anyone help?

    Regards

  17. Why didn’t I look for this first????!!!

    Spent half a day trying to repair Outlook, uninstalling Office, reinstalling Office, trying to repair XP Pro.

    Just one tweak to the instructions for XP users:

    1. Go to Control Panel and select mail
    2 You see a pop up that has four buttons below it – click on “Properties”
    3 In my case, I had something called “Microsoft Outlook Internet Settings” (as well as “Outlook”)
    4 Here’s the tweak) – I used the fouirth button, “Copy”, to copy that “Microsoft Outlook Internet Settings” profile and changed the name – e.g., to “Microsoft Outlook Settings”
    5 Then went to the pull down tab at the bottom, made sure it showed

    Always use this profile
    “Microsoft Outlook Settings”

    and – bingo!

    Thanks so much for this!!

  20. I had to run scanpst.exe a couple of times on my pst files to repair them (a single pass did not work and left the files damaged); then I ran outlook.exe /resetnavpane and it worked.
    Thanks

  21. Thanks, Tim for the thread and SummerR for the solution. Worked like a charm and was so easy to execute.

  22. Your solution worked! Bless you. Microsoft has nothing on their Knownothing Base. Microsoft Office Diagnostics was useless. As a last resort, I Googled the cryptic “Cannot open Outlook Folder” message and found your straight-forward solution.

    I too hate Microsoft!

  24. I am unable to fix anything, but yet with your help I got my outlook back….not sure if the ” need to be used, it worked without the ” for me!

  25. Tim – a big thank you as your suggestion saved me a great deal of pain and heartache. It is a shame we all have to share information this way to solve these problems, however I’m thankful we all take the time to share.

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