5 Outlook troubleshooting tips for Outlook users

outlook-troubleshooting-tipsWhen it comes to go for a professional email client Microsoft Outlook becomes the first choice of any business user. This gigantic email application comes with loads of features, functions, capabilities and settings to help user in various situations. In general Outlook is the most effective emailing software for business users and it works like a victor.

Generally Outlook offers great user experience but at times user can face issues with Outlook as well and sometimes these issues seems impossible to fix.  By doing proper study and following necessary steps user can easily find out the issues and resolve them with ease.  Below are the top 5 outlook tips to safeguard your outlook from future disaster:

1) Remove Unused Outlook Add-ins – Though Outlook is extremely flexible email client because of large sets of supportive add-ins but excess use of Outlook add-ins makes it slower and difficult to work. Just to check the verity of point you can use Outlook in safe mode. In safe mode Outlook will work faster and smother.

To run your Outlook in safe mode, just type following command outlook.exe /safe in run.

Once you done with verification you can use following steps to disable extra Outlook add-ins –

Go to “Tools

In tools go into “Trust Center

At last select “Add ins” to remove unnecessary Outlook add-ins.

Now Restart your Outlook.

2) Run Inbox Repair Tools (Scanpst.exe) – Many times PST files develop anonymous errors and when they do, they affect the working procedure of Outlook that further results in poor Outlook performance. In such scenario it’s better to run Inbox repair utility Scanpst.exe against PST file used within Outlook. The most common impose for running this utility is when Outlook rebuffs to load or is unable to open a PST file and displays an error similar to –

“Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window. The set of folders cannot be opened. Errors have been detected in the file 

C:\Users\Eve\Documents\Outlook Files\Outlook.pst.”

To deal with the above stated error run scanpst.exe, Here is the location of scanpst.exe depends on the version of Windows –

Note – Scan PST can takes long time if the PST file size is too heavy as it has to back up your data, scan for errors, and repair any errors found. 

3) Disable Anti Virus – Few Antivirus programs comes with inbuilt Outlook connector that scans each and every email and that scanning process makes Outlook slow in work processing. If you are not sure about the reason of slow Outlook then you can temporarily disable the antivirus. If disabled antivirus improves your outlook speed then you must need to update your antivirus version.

4) Archive Old Data – In organizations where one have to deal with hundreds of email per day, PST file becomes too heavy and starts origin issues with Outlook. In those scenarios it is much better to archive the old data which is not in use now. To know the detailed steps visits – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287070

Note – In case if you are using Outlook in collaboration of MS Exchange Server then you can use any third party tool like Stellar OST to PST Converter tool to archive old OST file data.

5) Rename OST File – When Outlook works in offline mode with Exchange Server, it creates OST file. At times even renaming this OST file can solve many Outlook issues. To rename OST file follow –

  1. Close all working programs.
  2. Click Start and then Search and click For Files or Folders.
  3. In the search dialog box, click All files and folders.
  4. In the All or part of the file name tab, type *.ost .
  5. Click the hard disk in the Look in list.
  6. In the advanced options option, click to select the Include subfolders check box, and then click Search
  7. In the Name column, you see the .ost file.
  8. Right-click the .ost file, and then click Rename. Rename the file by using a different file name extension.
  9. On the File menu, click Close.
  10. Open Outlook, point to Send/receive on the Tools menu, and then click Send/Receive All.

Bottom LineIf you are a regular Outlook user, don’t panic and just follow above discussed Outlook troubleshooting tips to get rid from Outlook errors.

Guest article written by: Yogita Aggarwal, an avid tech blogger. Follow her on – http://about.me/Yogitaaggarwal You can also visit her recommended tool for OST to PST conversation [tp lang=”en” only=”y”]http://osttopstconverter.stellarservertools.com/[/tp][tp not_in=”en”]http://osttopstconverter.stellarservertools.com/[/tp]

Leave a Comment