Can't open PST files in new OL 2003/Win7 Profile

[rlweiner]

I've been troubleshooting frequent OL crashes since migrating to a new Win7 computer. My next step was going to be creating a new profile -- which I did. However, I can't open any PST files in the new profile, and OL won't open without a PST file. When I go into the new profile's properties and click Data File Management, I see nothing. The only option there is Add -- Open Folder is greyed out. When I click Add the only option is Business Contact Manager Database (I don't use Business Contact Manager). I tried choosing this option and see an entry for Business Contact Manager Database, but Filename shows as Not available. If I click Settings for that entry it says "The Requested Operation Failed." And I still don't get the Open Folder option.

I've run Detect and Repair on Outlook and ScanPST.

Anyone seen this kind of thing before?

I have the sense that it may be a permission problem -- I've found that lots of my migrated files and software were owned by a nonexistent account, and have had to take ownership repeatedly, even after taking ownership of the entire C drive. That's just a guess, though.

I've uploaded a screen shot of the Data File Management screen for the new profile (without a Business Contact Manager entry).

Robert

[Paul T]

Can you use File > Open > Outlook Data File from the main Outlook screen?

cheers, Paul

[rlweiner]

Paul,

Yes, I can open the data files within my old profile, both from within OL and from Control Panel/Mail/Profiles. The new profile won't even open, since it doesn't have a PST file to point to.

Robert

[rlweiner]

I'm still having problems with Outlook 2003 under Win 7. ScanPST and Detect and Repair didn't fix things so I did a complete uninstall of Outlook and used the Windows Install Cleanup Tool to make sure nothing remained, then reinstalled. That allowed me to create a new profile and open my existing PST file. But I'm still having symptoms of a corrupted profile: 1) When I try to export my contacts as a PST file I get the error "The messaging interface has returned an unknown error." 2) The Move to Folder option is not updating with the history of folders I've saved to. 3) The new profile refuses to remember my setting for the Reading Pane -- I keep setting it to Bottom but when I restart Outlook it's on the side. 4) My contacts in the new profile aren't working properly -- no contacts appear when I compose a new message, but when I click on Contacts they're all there.

Since the new profile didn't fix things I tried creating a brand new PST file in the new profile and importing my old one. I got the same "messaging interface has returned an unknown error." I subsequently ran a Detect and Repair on both Outlook and Office 2003 but still get the error.

Perhaps related to this, after reinstalling Windows Update has been trying to apply updates to Outlook. The update fails on Outlook 2003 SP3 and the Junk Mail Filter (KB 97713) with error 80070643. The MS KB doc on this error suggested that OSE.exe is corrupted and said I should replace it with the original distribution, which I did. That didn't fix the problem.

Has anyone seen and fixed this set of problems before? Anything else I should try?

Robert

[WendellB]

My guess (and it is strictly that) is that you are still fighting with permissions issues - the security model in Win7 is much more picky than it was in older OSs. And I have only had limited experience with Win7 at this point - hopefully one of the folks actively using it can make a suggestion as to what to try next.