Real Strange Outlook 2000 Issue

[vage]

ok so at my work we use Office 2000 for every single person at work, except for a select 1 or 2 that have 2003. Recently, one employee has been having issues with his Outlook 2000. For some reason, Outlook is just painfully slow. Its not that it starts up slow, or retrieves mail slow, all of that is normal. But when you double click on a message to open it, or when you try to create a new message or a new note, etc, it takes about 5 minutes for it to pop up and in the mean time you can't do anything else in outlook.

Now his system is pretty decent, he's running Windows XP Pro, has a P4 3.2ghz, 2 gigs of ram. Everything else on his system runs very snappy and quick so I know its not his machine. He logs onto the domain and can share files quickly so I know its not his internet connection. I ran scans and repairs on his PST which came up with nothing. I created a new PST file to see if that would work and nothing changed. I also created an entirely new profile which also did nothing to resolve the issue. Finally I decided to completely remove and reinstall Office 2000 on his system but that didn't work either.

At this point I have no idea why his Outlook would be doing this. Does anyone have any kind of thoughts at all on what I could do? I think my last option would be to remove and readd him to the domain, but that is last resort and frankly I don't think it would work. Any ideas would be great.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Does he have all his Office updates? service packs and other updates for office.
Any leftover antivirus plugins in the COM+ section of Outlook you can uncheck?
Look for a hidden file named "extend.dat"..located in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook......delete it. Next time you open Outlook a new one will be recreated.

[vage]

1) Yup office is up to date and everything

2) No addins what so ever in the COM+ section of Outlook

3) Found and deleted it but it doesn't change anything.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Should always have one....are you having the search show hidden/system files?
It's sort of like the old normal.dot file..when Word has issues, often normal.dot has become corrupcted, delete it, Word will create a new one upon next launch.

Roaming profile?

PST located on network share or local?

When you say you created a new profile..do you mean Outlook profile or his entire local user profile?

For a test, what happens if you log into this machine as a new user and create an Outlook profile..does it act the same, or behave normally?

I'm guessing (since you mention PST) this is not an Exchange setup, but just POP3?

[vage]

I did end up finding it and deleting it and it didn't help.

Nope its not a roaming profile and the PST is located on his local hard disk. And yes this is Exchange with PST files. (Let's not get into how things are run here, I do not agree with most of them).

[YeOldeStonecat]

Nope its not a roaming profile and the PST is located on his local hard disk. And yes this is Exchange with PST files. (Let's not get into how things are run here, I do not agree with most of them).

Ick. Defeats part of the purpose of Exchange. But OK...it's not your call.

How large is the PST?

[vage]

The PST file is relatively small, under 500 mb. We usually change them out when the reach close to 2GB, but I thought maybe his was just acting up now even though its not too large so I replaced it and that didn't do anything.

Yeah I know it defeats the purpose of exchange, there are a lot of things that we do here that would make you just smack your own head. Such as static IP's for every single workstation in the entire company. That's right, a company of around 500+ workstations and absolutely no DHCP what so ever.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Oh yeah..my bad...I forgot that you said you tried a fresh PST...so the size question of mine is irrelevant.

500 nodes and static...wow. You must have some nice bruises on your forehead. :D

That's all I can think of as far as the basics of troubleshooting Outlook.

Hmm...if you recreate his Outlook profile..does it resolve his username to the Exch server name quickly ? (ya know, when you click that "check name" button?)

Is there an Exchange migration taking place? Where his box was moved to the new server, and somehow his workstation is being pokey following? (still some remnant looking for the old Exchange server first)

I guess next I'd try to narrow down if it's a local issue with his 'puter, or an issue with his account. Possible tests...
*Log into his workstation as another user..setup Outlook...same issue or work fine?
*Log onto another workstation with his user account..setup Outlook..same issue or work fine?
*Save his data (such as Outlook PST, My Documents, Desktop, IE Favorites, whatever else)....blow away his complete profile on this workstation (or actually log into safe mode with networking support as Domain Admin...copy his entire user profile to a safe neutral location such as C:\Download\FunkyDudes profile). Once copied and backed up...reboot and log in as him again..create a fresh virgin profile..and try Outlook.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Another think I forgot to add, Outlook looking for other PST files that were somehow added by accident, or various Archive files that are no longer there?

[vage]

Yeah its pretty annoying to work here to be honest. I'm pretty much at the same point as you where I've exhausted all "normal" problems that it could be, and now I have to start looking for odd resolutions. I'll try those suggestions out and see what they give me. Thanks for giving me a hand so early on a Saturday morning.

[TechieSooner]

Such as static IP's for every single workstation in the entire company. That's right, a company of around 500+ workstations and absolutely no DHCP what so ever.
I know some large schools that do this... They keep a chart of physical locations of computers and their IP address, that way if any particular IP gives them issues (or drowns the internet connection), they know exactly where it's at. Personally I still disagree with that, as keep a chart of COMPUTER NAMES and run NSLOOKUP, but no idea why such big networks try to use Static.


*Log into his workstation as another user..setup Outlook...same issue or work fine?
*Log onto another workstation with his user account..setup Outlook..same issue or work fine?
These are what I'd try. If both work, it's probably his user profile on his machine. When deleting it, I wouldn't just copy the entire folder contents over to his new one, as there is probably some config files screwy in there... I'd give him his docs and let him re-do all his configuration settings, personally (chances are there are very few).
Right now you've tried everything "normally possible" to try... At this point you just need to narrow down where the problem is at exactly.