Outlook keeps crashing

[Rayo K]

Every time I try to start Outlook 2003 (Win XP) it says "Cannot start
Outlook. Unable to open the Outlook window. The set of folders could not be
opened. the server is not available."

I can't do anything - it immediately closes. Also, I am not on a server so I
have no idea what it means. Pllease help.

 

[K. Orland]

Have you set up an email account and configured it for Outlook to use? It
can't open if it's not set up correctly. Do you have an ISP (Internet Service
Provider)? If so, check their website for details on how to set up your email
account.

 

[Rayo K]

I believe from previous experience that if an account is not setup, Outlook
will prompt you to set one up and even if you don't it will open with a bare
bones Personal Folders file that you can use for tasks, contacts, calender,
etc.

But to answer the question, yes, I had it setup with several email accounts
and it was working fine for months. It crashed while I was adding a contact
to my contact list. But, I was able to use a backup profile that I had
created before and successfully run OL. Then I tried to open my original PST
and it told me there was an error in the PST and I needed to run ScanPST.exe.
I had to search the whole computer to find ScanPST but I did and ran it on
the old PST. It repaired it (supposedly) and then I was able to run OL with
my normal profile. I don't know what damage was done but I don't see anything
missing from my normal PST yet.

So I eventually fixed it but MS Office certainly doesn't make it easy.
Outlook apparently can't run in a backup mode if the main PST folder is
corrupted and the error message was ridiculously unhelpful. (Where did it
come up with this fictitious "server" it was talking about?). Finally, I had
to do a file search over my entire 100GB hard drive to find the utility to
fix it.