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Question

Micros outllook hangs and the screen stay white please help

Aug 16, 2011 10:24PM PDT

Hi, have a dell workstation with windows xp prof spk3. My microsfot outlook is from the basic edition 2003 works great with the exception when I try to open an Excel or Word attachment from an email it frequently hangs. Outlook 2003 then goes to a white screen with just the window border, and says not responding, my antivirus is Mcafee. I tried disabling everything from msconfig, and starting up, but the dang outlook still hangs when I try to open word/excel attachments. I am at a loss. My computer has 3 gb RAM plenty space available in the hd, i think it is something to do with some microsoft updates or maybe microsoft office basic edition 2003, i have been googled i found a lot of people asking the same questions but actually i don't see an specific answer for it, can you please guide me here thanks a lot
Regards

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Try a different way.
Aug 17, 2011 7:03AM PDT

Outlook doesn't really know how to open attachments, whether Word documents or Excel spreadsheet files, so try a different way.

Save the attachments to your hard drive. I use my Desktop as a temporary location for email attachments. Then open the attachments from those saved files. That way, Windows controls which application to use to open the attachments, and not Outlook.

It is the method we always recommend anyway because we can then scan the attachments for viruses before opening them.

Mark

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Thanks a lot but ?
Aug 17, 2011 10:50PM PDT

It is been working ok so far but lately this start to be an issue so if it was not while all the suddenly this happen ? it has to be a cause, i am wondering if anyone can tell if you google as i did, you will see how many questions about this issue are in the web.
Thanks a lot very appreciated

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Did you ask us to fix a Microsoft bug?
Aug 18, 2011 4:28AM PDT

After this many years Microsoft has told us in a roundabout way they are not going to fix this. MSFT continues to offer workarounds rather than fixes.

Just wondering if you got the memo.
Bob

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No i did not ask you to fix it
Aug 18, 2011 11:29PM PDT

I will take your answer as a positive suggestion but what do u mean if i got the memo ?
Thanks you always have been helping others and i really appreciate it i am one of them but i found rare the statement "Just wondering if you got the memo." i don't get it
Thanks

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Let me share a finding.
Aug 18, 2011 11:58PM PDT

At the office we use Outlook and have for years. We started with Outlook 97 and up to Outlook 2007 still saw the bug you are asking about. Microsoft's answers have been to uninstall, reinstall the app and/or the OS.

That's the memo in short form. At no time did we receive a solid fix.

The only new item is we found less troubles if we unchecked the "Use Word as the email editor" box.

But again, no fix was offered.

Hope you get the message.
Bob

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Got it now Thanks a lot man
Aug 19, 2011 12:09AM PDT

I know you are always there to help very appreciated

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There are things you can try
Aug 18, 2011 4:50AM PDT

but if this only happens when Outlook attempts to read attachments, then the Save to Disk and open from there, method is the best alternative, and it is safer too.

Safer? Your McAfee anti-virus scanner may be set to scan emails as they arrive, but it is a cursory scan and it is recommended that you copy the attachment to the hard disk and perform a full scan. If this is a home computer and emails are from friends. relatives, I have learned not to trust any of them. So often they no-not what they do. And of course, emails from unknown sources get deleted anyway.

If this is a works computer, then have you asked the office IT guy to fix it?

Email is still a major distributor of malware and it is up to us to keep our systems safe.

It is difficult to say if this change has occurred because of malware damage. Using just an anti-virus scanner is not sufficient nowadays and we have to arm ourselves and our computers with anti-malware devices as well.

You say it used to work so the question is, what changed since then? If you are telling me that this is not caused by malware, then things you can try;

1] Try Outlook in it's Safe Mode. In Windows go to Start > Run and type in outlook.exe /safe then click OK. Note the space before /safe . This is a diagnostic method to see if Outlook works without add-ins.

2] Remove or disable all Outlook Add-ins and re-test. This link may help.

3] "Repair" Outlook, guidance here; Microsoft's How to understand the repair feature in Office 2003 and in Office XP.

4] If this 'only' happens to Microsoft Word and Excel documents, make sure that those applications have not become corrupt in any way.

Mark

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Mark thanks a lot but there is something Weird
Aug 18, 2011 11:45PM PDT

Yesterday the user of that computer call me and says hey check this, by the way i even replaced the old video card by a new one just giving you this info, so here is what happen, he had autocad open and Micros outlook 2003 open, he was in the middle of finishing typing an email(no attachaments at all) then he has to go somewhere for a while so when he came back he call me then i can see that the microsoft outlook was like painted in white as well as autocad but while moving the mouse little by little the window is trying to redraw to go to the normal state, never was capable to go the normal state, as well i cannot see anything in the taskbar but by moving the mouse the open applications icon in the taskbar appears then i selected to right click on the M outlook icon and minimize it then i was able to get back to the autocad window and save the drwawings i have open, then after minimized i clicked restore and M outl came back again, this is weird, i don't think is nothing to do with the video card since it did the same thing with the older one, the reason i changed to a new one is cause i noticed that the old one could be getting a lot heat and maybe that was the caused but i am wrong, hope this maybe change the course of this issue and you or anyone else can suggest something else about this.
Thanks a lot for ur Help

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Could be a big clue
Aug 19, 2011 6:22AM PDT

You mentioned heat.

Possibly this 'workstation?' is heading for a failure. If heat is a problem then we can do the old 'remove dust bunnies and check the fans' option, and make sure the air vents are clear from obstruction.

I think you are right, this may not just be an Outlook problem but a bigger one.

Mark

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(NT) as always thanks a lot , i will do that
Aug 20, 2011 11:19PM PDT