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General discussion

outlook 2002 preview pane problems, help!!

Jun 17, 2005 5:46AM PDT

Hi,

I am using microsoft office xp professional on microsoft xp and I am having
a problem in Outlook. I have had this software for several years and had no
problems and I have not installed any new software recently. Whenever I open
up outlook if the preview pane is 'on' the program freezes. It doesn't show
any error message or anything it just shows the hourglass and says that the
program is not responding. I have run all kinds of programs to try and fix
it, I have repaired the installation of office, run my antivirus software,
adaware, spybot, and various norton utilities and it fixed it to where I
could get in and disable the preview pane. I can use it as long as it is not
on and if it is on and the message is a simple message, ie basic graphics and
text, no html or anything else, it will display it. but if it opens on any
message that is anything other than a basic message or anything like that it
freezes and I have to restart the program. I also cannot reply to any messages at all no matter what the content. I have also reset all the security things that I might have changed to suit me to the default but I might have missed some. I don't know what else to do, I
have looked at the microsoft help but can't find any help. Can anyone tell me
what I can do to fix this? Thanks

Carly

Discussion is locked

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Just FYI.
Jun 17, 2005 6:06AM PDT

As a demo, I showed that simple javascript in a HTML email will lock up Outlook and Outlook Express if one previews that email. To get rid of said email, you can run Outlook in it's SAFE mode.

Hint: press Start, Run and enter...

OUTLOOK /SAFE

That demo was over a year ago so I'm sure the bad people out there will send such emails.

Tip: Do not leave Preview enabled since I can do worse things than just lock up Outlook.

Bob

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Wow, thanks for the tip
Jun 17, 2005 6:19AM PDT

Hi

thanks for the tip, I will gladly disable preview pane to get my outlook back to normal. I think that is exactly what happened to me because I was just going along opening email using the preview pane and then it freezes like I described on this one email. I finally got it deleted but was still having problems. Is there a virus or something on my computer now? How do I check to see if there is anything on my system? I have norton antivirus, adaware, spybot and sygate but I know that there is no way to block everything that comes in. Any other tips would be very helpful!

Carly

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That's a good list. Do one more scan.
Jun 17, 2005 6:41AM PDT
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(NT) Thanks I will go and run that now!!
Jun 20, 2005 9:11AM PDT

Thanks, I will be sure and bookmark that. Thanks so much!

Carly