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Outlook Express not Working With Windows Vista

When Windows Vista was released, at January 2007., everyone expected the best software ever. Expectations were high; everyone wanted to have Vista installed on their PCs and laptops. Vista is XP’s inheritor and by that it was suppose to be a better operating system than XP. But, unfortunately, that wasn’t the case here. Many Vista users are disappointed with its usability because it’s not user friendly at all. Some may say that Vista is the worst product ever made by Microsoft.

A problem that bothers most of the users is Vista’s incompatibility with software that was normally used and without any problems on Windows XP. That problem was found at the begging of Vista and a year after that problem is still here. If some things don’t change soon, Vista will not be popular in near future either.

Among dozens of problems you get when using Vista, one is just making more trouble than the others. That problem is related to Outlook Express 2002. If you can remember right now, before using your Outlook you have to set up your account by filling in your passwords, user ID, server name and e-mail addresses. And of course, you check the option which will save all of your passwords. That’s it. You can now use your Outlook. But, where is the problem you ask? Well, the problem starts the second time you open your Outlook. When you open it and try to send or receive your e-mails a small window pops-up with your user ID info, server name and with a blank field for passwords. If you go to your account settings you will see that all of yours previously written passwords are now gone. And that’s your problem. You have to write password every time you open Outlook Express.

You can find many complaints to this problem on the internet, and a very few good solutions. Maybe the best way to avoid such a problem is to stick with Windows XP and not using Vista, but that’s up to you. Of course, Microsoft is very aware of this problem and because of that it has put some solutions for fixing it on their official Help & Support page. Too bad that their solutions aren’t useful to all users, but there is always an alternative. Some users have written their own solutions on many community boards, but again they don’t work for everyone. I suggest you to try them all until you find what’s good for you.

Here is one solution for this problem:

Create a new Outlook profile or a new Outlook Express identity

The first thing that you should try is to create a new Outlook profile if you are using Outlook or to create a new Outlook Express identity if you are using Outlook Express. To do this, see either the "Create a new Outlook Profile" section or the "Create a new Outlook Express identity" section later in this article.

Create a new Outlook Profile

Create a new Outlook profile, and then configure the new profile to use the personal folders (.pst) file that was used by the damaged profile. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Locate the .pst file

To locate the .pst file that your profile uses, follow these steps for the version of Outlook that you are using.

For Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
1. Start Outlook.
2. On the Tools menu, click Account Settings.
3. On the E-mail tab, click your e-mail account.
4. In the Account settings dialog box, under Selected e-mail account delivers new e-mail messages to the following location, you will see the path and the file name for the .pst file that is associated with your e-mail profile. For example, the path and the file name may resemble the following:

C:Documents and Settings user_name Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlookPersonal Folders(1).pst

5. Note the path and the file name for the .pst file that is associated with your e-mail profile.

For Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and Microsoft Outlook 2002
1. Start Outlook.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options.
3. On the Mail Setup tab, click Data Files.
4. Note the path and the file name for each .pst file that is associated with your e-mail profile. For example, the path and the file name may resemble the following:

C:Documents and Settings user_name Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlookPersonal Folders(1).pst

2. Create a new e-mail profile in Outlook

After you locate the .pst files, create a new e-mail profile in Outlook. To do this, follow these steps.

For Outlook 2007
1. Start Outlook.
2. On the Tools menu, click Account Settings.
3. Click the E-mail tab, and then click New.
4. Follow the instructions in the Add New E-mail Account wizard to create the new account.

Note If you do not have the account information that the Add New E-mail Account wizard requires, view the settings for your existing account. To do this, click the account on the E-mail tab in the Account Settings dialog box, and then click Change. Note each setting in the Internet E-mail Settings dialog box.

If you do not know the password for your e-mail account, contact your Internet service provider (ISP). Or, if your mailbox is not associated with your ISP, contact the network administrator of the server on which your mailbox is located for help with your password.

3. Configure the new profile to use the .pst file that was used by the damaged profile

After you create the new profile in Outlook, configure the new profile to use the .pst file that was used by the damaged profile. To do this, follow the steps for the version of Outlook that you are using.

For Outlook 2007
1. Start Outlook.
2. On the Tools menu, click Account Settings.
3. On the E-mail tab, click your e-mail account.
4. Click Change Folder under Selected e-mail account delivers new e-mail messages to the following location at the bottom of the Account Settings dialog box.
5. Click New Outlook Data File, click Office Outlook Personal Folders File, and then click OK.
6. Locate and then click the .pst file that was used by the damaged profile, and then click OK.

For Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2002
1. Start Outlook.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options.
3. On the Mail Setup tab, click E-mail accounts, click View or change existing e-mail accounts, and then click Next.
4. Click New Outlook Data File, click Personal Folders file (.pst) under Types of storage, and then click OK.
5. Locate and then click the .pst file that you want to use, and then click OK two times.
Note If you want to use more than one .pst file, repeat steps 4 and 5 for each .pst file that you want to use with the new e-mail profile.
6. In the Deliver new e-mail to the following location list, click Personal Folders, and then click Finish.
7. Click OK if you receive the following message:
You have changed the default deliver location for your e-mail. This will change the location of the Inbox, Calendar, and other folders. These changes will take effect the next time that you start Outlook.
8. On the File menu, click Exit.
9. Start Outlook. Then, click Yes to update the Outlook Bar shortcuts to point to the .pst files if you receive the following message:
The location that messages are delivered to has changed for this user profile. To complete this operation, you may need to copy the contents of the old Outlook folders to the new Outlook folders. For information about how to complete the change of your mail delivery location, see Microsoft Outlook Help. Some of the shortcuts on the Outlook Bar may no longer work. Do you want Outlook to re-create your shortcuts?

Create a new Outlook Express identity

To create a new Outlook Express identity, follow these steps:

1. On the File menu in Outlook Express, point to Identities, and then click Add New Identity.
Or, on the File menu, point to Identities, click Manage Identities, and then click New. The New Identity dialog box will open.

2. Type your name in the Type Your name box.

3. Click to select the Require Password check box if you want to set a password for this identity, and then click OK.

4. Click Yes in the Identity Added dialog box. Outlook Express asks whether you want to log on as a new user.

If you click Yes, you will be prompted for information about your Internet connection. If you click No, the current user remains logged on.

And that’s it. I hope it helped.

About the Author

Drazen Prastalo writes computer related articles for H-desk – Computer software/hardware forum where you can find more info.