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Outlook2003 "Unable to open default .."

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by dbergesen

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I have Outlook 2003 installed on a new PC and am trying to open it for the first time. It comes up saying it is building a welcome message and then I get a error message saying "Unable to open your default e-mail folders. You must connect to your Microsoft Exchange Server computer with the current profile before you can synchronize your folders with the offline folder file." I never asked it to do any synchronization. I tried to delete the e-mail account so I could re-create it and it comes back telling me I can't delete it until I create a new one to hold the messages, which there are none. Yet when I try to create a new account Exchange stops me saying there is already an account created and you can't have two. I have looked through the MS Knowledgebase and can't find any reference to the above message. HELP!

4 replies

by house

1) If you have the Outlook icon on your desktop, got to step 6 now. If you do not, go to the start menu, select the run command, and type in "regedit" then hit enter.

2) Go to the following entry...
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\

3) Right click the NameSpace entry and go "new" then "key"

4) Rename the new key as "{00020D75-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"

5) You may need to logoff and logon for this to take effect.

6) Right click the outlook icon on the desktop and go to properties

7) Click "show profiles" and remove any entries in the window

8) Click "data files", you can manage the settings of your pst files here. Make sure that they are not looking for an exchange server to sync with.

9) Click "email accounts"...from here you can add and remove any existing accounts.

Thank you.

by dbergesen

This helped a little. After doing steps 1 - 5 I was able to start up Outlook. Now, it stalls when trying to create the Welcome message and give me the following error message: "Unable to open your default e-mail folders. You must connect to your Microsoft Exchange Server computer with the current profile before you can synchronize your folders with the offline folder file. I don't want to, nor did I ask to synchronize anything. When you click OK Outlook shuts down. What have I done for this to think I want to synchronize?

by honu425

YOu have to have an Outlook Data File of some sort in order for Outlook to open. This can be a pst file associated with the profile or and Exchange Server Mailbox. But there has to be somewhere for Outlook to store any data (i.e., Welcome Message).

Hope this helps

by senftk

this happens sometimes when somebody opens outlook for the first time and cancels out of the setup.. then the next time you try to open it it acts like there was an account created.

instead of opening outlook, go to your control panel and open the mail icon. In there you should be able to remove and email accounts/ data stores.

Then exit out and open outlook, it should then prompt you to setup an account (like it should the first time using it).

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