I’m running Outlook 2003 with a pop account, XP SP3, and MS Internet Explorer 7. Whenever I respond to a message that was sent in HTML format, Outlook 2003 hogs at least 50% of my CPU. None of the solutions I’ve seen posted online have worked for me. Incidentally, I’m not running Spybot, which has also run into this problem. I’ve tried the following:
(1) Changed the security setting in Outlook from Restricted to Internet. I know this is isn’t recommended; I just wanted to see whether it helped.
(2) In Outlook, clicked Tools, Options, Mail Format, and chose plain text for outgoing messages. For some reason, the “Use MS Word 2003 to edit email messages” option is greyed out.
(3) Deleted the Outcmd.dat file while Outlook was closed, so that it would be rebuilt in case it was corrupted.
(4) Congigured Outlook to start with Outlook Today instead of with the Inbox.
The only thing that prevents this problem is if I change the format of my reply message to plain text. Oddly enough, I can then change the format of my reply back to HTML, and the problem does not reappear (until I reply to another message that was sent in HTML format).
Any ideas?
Many thanks,
Anthony