Outlook 2003 acting weird

Hi,
I have had Outlook 2003 working just fine for years.
Just yesterday that changed..
I now click on my Outlook icon and the opening page start to open and load new mail around the 4th out of 52 it starts to do a 22.9 MB download.
At 22.3 MB it stalls and freezes and no matter how long I wait it goes nowhere from there...
Happens everytime so now I can't read and reply to anything..Which of course means I will have to check back for responses to this inquiry often because I won't know if I got an Email about it....
Is there some kind of Trojan Horse going around I can get an online fix too ..???

I have reinstalled my Microsoft Outlook 3 times and even did the Repair a few times but this did not correct anything....

I would like to not have to scrap this Outlook as I have some very important Emails saved in it...

Any possible scenarios as to what has occurred.???

 

Sounds like a really large e-mail or attachment has gummed up the works and Outlook or your ISP webmail is unable to handle it. Can you log onto your ISP e-mail through the web and see if it is sitting in your webmail inbox? You can possibly delete it from there without downloading it.

 

Thanks for that suggestion...I will try that and get back in a short while..

 

Well, I have gone to the Main server mailbox and deleted everything there. Then I ran AVG, Spybot[/U], Ad-Aware, Disc Cleanup and Defrag as well. I also did a System Restore to a week before this happened and ran a Repair on Microsoft Office and my Email still won't work correctly...Just starts normal then turns into a white sheet...At one point I did get a serious looking MALWARE item on an Ad-Aware runthrough and was able to remove it.
One thing is, I am very curious about my Antivirus run. Now when I do a test there is something that consistently turns up that I have never seen before...Under File appears shell32.dll....

next to that under Result/infection is CHANGE..

Next to that under path is C:\\WINDOWS\system32\shell32.dll...
I don't quite understand what that is indicative of...Since the AntiVirus keeps stating no infections found...yet every time I run a test the same thing appears even if I do back to back tests...

 

In my Win98SE "shell32.dll" is a legitimate MS file so probably is OK on your system. I would suggest you post in the Removing Spyware forum section with a link back to this thread. If a lingering malware infection is present one of the spyware removal experts can possibly help you from there.

Another possibility is that your inbox has become corrupted. I am not sure how to correct this in Outlook without loosing your e-mails as all the directories in Outlook are contained within the "outlook.pst" file and deleting it would delete the e-mails. Perhaps someone else will suggest a possible fix.

 

Thank you for the suggestion..I will try the forum first...I would think reinstalling and repairing with my Office disc would fix the corrupted component. But I guess not...

 

[FONT= "Times New Roman"]Hi Steve,

Thank you for your Help...
I went to the link you provided...I read the instructions.

I did type scanpst.exe in the search window and clicked go...

13 files showed up and that is where I got too confused to continue...

The rest of the instructions
didn't make sense because I did not know what file, if any of the 13, to double click on to do a repair..
Any idea what I am supposed to do at this point????[/FONT]

 

Well..Here is an update that may be helpful to someone in the future...
I also had this same problem posted on Removing Spyware and Viruses section here on BBS...A staffer named GERI gave me a link to download a great freeware download named ATF Cleaner.exe....At first it just did a good job cleaning up hard to get to files but my Outlook still froxe up...Then I got the bright idea to preload the ATF and run it just as I was opening my Outlook and Bingo!! I guess it caught the process opening up but before it got to the freezing point and got rid of the Email that was causing all the trouble...Now everything is back to normal...

Of course there is always the chance I am simply delusional and what I did had absolutely Nothing to do with my solution but Hey!! It is worth a mention...Thank you for all the help You gave me....Most likely the solution was in applying all the processes I was directed to as a symbiotic whole. But I like to think Lateral Thinking had a hand in the solution as well..Humor me!!

Hope your New Year is the best one you ever had..
Thanks for your much needed help,
Aryan

 

Pleased to hear you got the problem fixed. Sorry I couldn't be of more help. It's been sometime since I dabbled with Outlook.

 

Hey John,
You were the best help ever..You are the one who suggested I go by the Removing Spyware section of this site...And it is there I got the fix from Geri...I would not have gone there on my own...You are responsible for solving my problem...Thank you for caring enough to guide me in the right direction.
I hope you have the best year ever...Aryan

 

You are most welcome Aryan and thank you for the kind words. The best of 2008 to you as well.