MS Outlook

[Kathleane]

I'm running MS Outlook 2003 on Windows 7. For the last week I'll attempt to read an email or delete a message that I was viewing in the reading pane and get the following error mssg:

Another application closed while using your Personal Folders file c:\users\name\appdata\local\microsoft\outlook\outl ook.pst. To prevent further damage to your Personal Folders file, it will not be available until you close all applications using it.

I can then no longer view any mssgs in the reading pane or otherwise, delete a mssg or do anything at all in Outlook until I reboot the program. I don't need to reboot the computer, just Outlook to get it working again.

No new software has been installed or deleted, no changes have been made to Outlook or any MS Office programs.

I've Googled the problem but haven't yet found a repair for this. Does anyone have any ideas?

[Ol'Tunzafun]

Have you run the Scanpst.exe utility yet? If not, type Scanpst in the Win7 Search box and execute it from there.

[CrazyCrusher]

Here is how to use the Scanpst.pst , last time I seen that error was from my old computer and someone had deleted the outlook.pst (of course I never found out who)

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/micro...ders-pst-file/

[Steve R Jones]

Some other app using your pst file could be a bad thing. Scanning for viruses is a good idea....

[Ol'Tunzafun]

It is probably the antivirus that is accessing it. You can test this by disabling the AV application.

[Kathleane]

I think I found the problem. When Outlook places emails in the Junk box it pops up a box asking if you want to open the Junk box. If you choose yes, then it opens up an entire new instance of Outlook. When I close this Outlook and go back to the original Outlook that I had open, I experience the errors mentioned above.

If I find that this is not the problem, then I'll run the utility mentioned in one of the replies.

[Kathleane]

Is there any danger of losing or corrupting info when running the Scanpst utility?

[Steve R Jones]

You should be backing up your files anyway

Using the Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders Backup tool
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ou...875321033.aspx