outlook express 6 "locks" the system for 60-90sec after launch

I reloaded win98se from a good disc image, which I have done many times without trouble. This time, oe6 has a problem. About 30 sec. after I start it, something happens in the background that completely takes over the cpu for about 60-90 sec. During this time, nothing else works. Eventually it clears. So far, I have not found the cause. Anybody ever have the same problem? Any suggestions where I should look for the cause? Thanks.

 

It may be anti-virus software running in the background. Try disabling it and see if the problem still occurs. Also, before you open it, ctrl-alt-del and end task on any programs that you don't need running. I don't know if there is a free program like this, but one thing I did like about memokit was that it could snapshot times on your system to see what was running at the time of a lock-up or crash.
There doesn't seem to be much info out there regarding this exact problem.
Make sure you have all critical updates installed.
You could also try doing a repair on oe6 to see if that helps.
The only microsoft article I found that came close was this but it didn't refer to OE6 :

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;271510

You could also try running sfc to see if anything is picked up there.
Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. Right after I first posted, I started selectively disabling programs and you were right on with anti-virus. The thing is, it should not be interfering, at least it never has before. One reason I use pc-cillin is that it seems to interfere less that others. When I graph several system functions, I get a big spike of file system reading and writing right after cpu usage spikes to 100%. The graphs for both read and write are exactly the same, which says to me that some sort of futile operation is going on. When this activity ends, my system is free again. I would love to figure out exactly what it is, so I'm going to play with it awhile longer. OE6 may well be corrupt and I suspect I'll end up reinstalling IE6 and see what that accomplishes. If it turns out to be anything interesting, I'll post it. Thanks again for the help.

 

OE6 may well be corrupt and I suspect I'll end up reinstalling IE6

Before the reinstall. Try the repair feature with IE, it repairs OE at the same time..

 

I sounds like it might be compacting messages in the background. In OE click tools\options and on the maintenance tab see if there's a check by the line that says compact messages in the background. If so, uncheck it and then see what happens.

 

Well done Zander. Thanks.

 

Your welcome. I personally always leave that line unchecked. It can be a real annoyance. Just remember to compact them manually once in a while.