Can not open Outlook as admin, can open Outlook as other user

[Bill Marsh]

In Windows 7, I can not open Outlook 2003 when I am logged in as "administrator". I can open Outlook when logged in as "Guest", or any other user, though I don't see any of the "supposed to be imported email addresses" I should have when I migrated the files from Windows XP Pro to Win7 Pro.

My usual log in is "administrator" and I would like to keep it that way!

And I would like to find my email addresses!

Any ideas really appreciated.

 

[Ian]

Welcome to the forums Bill!

Do you get an error when you try to open the Application as an administrator?

 

[Bill Marsh]

Welcome to the forums Bill!

Do you get an error when you try to open the Application as an administrator?

Yes. Oultook 2003 begins to open and then I get a message that says something like,

"Cannot open the Outlook window. The set of folders cannot
be opened. The server is not available. Contact your administrator if this
condition persists".

I can't open Outlook at all while logged in as admin.

 

[Bill Marsh]

I have been exploring

Control Panel/mail/User Accounts and Family Safety/ and then right click on "Mail"

Mail Setup -- Outlook
Data Files -

I see several listings,
Archive Folders
Personal Folders

when I click on "Settings" for "Personal Folders" I get an error message: 0x80040119

 

[jesse]

Try uninstalling and reinstalling Outlook. Im assuming that you were able to open it at one point and you tried to setup your email for use with it. Its possible that something didnt get configured properly.

Also did you upgrade from vista or do a fresh install?

 

[Bill Marsh]

Try uninstalling and reinstalling Outlook. Im assuming that you were able to open it at one point and you tried to setup your email for use with it. Its possible that something didnt get configured properly.

Also did you upgrade from vista or do a fresh install?

Jesse,

I did try install/uninstall. Didn't help. I did a fresh install and upgraded from Win Xp pro to Win7 Pro.

There may be a glitch in my outlook.pst file. I can get a copy of my original Outlook.pst file from my XP drive, but, since i can't open Outlook from my admin position, I can't import the original Outlook.pst.

Also the "new" features in Win 7 will not allow even an admin into the Win 7 inner apps where I might transfer my old Oultook.pst file and place it where the new Outlook.PST file should be in Win 7 version of my Outlook 2003

Bill.

 

[jesse]

You shouldnt need to open outlook to import the original outlook.ost (the *.pst extension is for archive files, confirm which ext. it is)

Slave your XP Drive. Turn off UAC in Control Panel - User accounts. Open explorer and click on the Organize button in the top left corner. Folder and Search options - View Tab. Mark the Show hidden files and folders. Click OK.

Browse to your XP drive and open up \Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\

Copy the contents of that folder and browse to your Windows 7 Drive:
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\

There should be a *.ost file in there. Paste the XP Outlook contents here.

I might be off on the paths a little bit since Im at work and I dont have Windows 7 or XP installed here, but you should be able to find what you need.

This is assuming that the original outlook.ost is not corrupted/damaged.

 

[Bill Marsh]

Jesse, I have searched everything on my drives and can not find an *.ost file. I did go in and check folder options to show hidden files.

 

[jesse]

Hmm....

When you first installed Microsoft Office and opened outlook were you able to open Outlook and setup your account?

Perhaps you need to rebuild.

 

[Bill Marsh]

Hmm....

When you first installed Microsoft Office and opened outlook were you able to open Outlook and setup your account?

Perhaps you need to rebuild.

Jesse,

I was never able to open Outlook as Admin. Though the Outlook.pst file is there in the Win7 Outlook (Still using 2003) and the same size as it was on my original Win XP Pro, I have been unable to open it. It almost feesl as though it is busy trying to do something left over from XP. This is an intuition and seems to have no basis otherwise.

After about four days work, I have gotten most of my programs to work in Win 7, but this was not easy. I had to begin to understand the new OS, and while it is very good and intuitive, it is certainly very different from XP

One of the new things I tried was to partition my new drive with 80 gb space for the Win7 OS, and the remainder of the drive for programs. However when I tried to use Easy Transfer, it filled up the rest of my 80gb drive, with data. I had to move this data to the second partition of my new drive.

I even tried Thunderbird email, to see if it would open and migrate the outlook.pst file into it. No.

I went to my wife's computer and moved a copy of her Oultllo.pst over to my computer. I renamed the backup to Outlook.pst, but could not open that with my computer.

When I open Outlook with a different user profile, it will open, but it will not show my old addresses.

I guess I could wpie everything and begin again, I have backed up my entire old WinXP drive, and I still have the drive with all that data and programs still on it, but this would be scary to me as I am afraid I might have some other failure.

It would seem that there is something very simple here. Some registry entry, something I could do and all would be well.

Right now I am using and old laptop for my email. Not fun, but maybe preferable to a completewipe and reinstallation of my Win`7.

 

[thombac5]

Bill Marsh

I thought Outlook went out with Windows 7 ? I thought I seen online that Windows 7 has dropped Outlook ??? I think maybe that might be part of your problem... T.B.

 

[jesse]

Lets run through the process you took to install Windows 7 and your programs.

Im assuming you bought a new hard drive (or had one) to install Seven on. Windows installed without any errors? If not, what were the errors?

You say you are using Outlook 2003 as in Microsoft Office 2003? This installed without any errors? If not, what were the errors?

The likelyhood of you getting the same error is remote if everything is completely wiped and installed correctly. You should try to keep your XP files on a separate hard drive and only transfer your documents, pictures, and music/video. I would not recommend using the easy transfer wizard. Use Windows Explorer to browse to the XP files on the separate hard drive and copy/paste them to wherever you will be storing them on the Windows 7 hard drive. This is time consuming but well worth the effort. All programs should be manually reinstalled (not sure if this is an issue or not). Make sure that you have permissions to the files you are trying to play with. This can be edited under Properties - Security Tab.

There is no registry hack that will just magically fix the problem. If there is, I dont know enough about the registry to go digging for it. Sometimes a rebuild is all that can be done. I do at least one rebuild every week at work from moving to Vista and users manage to screw the system up so bad that we cant just fix it. Add total hard drive encryption into the mix and you have a disaster. Believe me, you will spend less time rebuilding your Windows 7 install than you would trying to find a solution to a very off the wall problem such as this. If the same thing happens then you should be able to pinpoint what happened before the problem starts and then get a better understanding of that problem and with that understanding, get better help fixing it.

Edit: Not to say that you cannot install anything correctly. Only that we are all human and as such, we all make mistakes.

 

[jesse]

I thought Outlook went out with Windows 7 ? I thought I seen online that Windows 7 has dropped Outlook ??? I think maybe that might be part of your problem... T.B.

Windows 7 was designed to as light as possible. Many programs, including Outlook Express, are no longer included as in previous version of Windows. Very few people use Outlook Express anymore anyways. Most people are using Windows Live or Microsoft Office.