After adjusting your toolbars as you like them, you may discover that Outlook doesn’t remember their position the next time you open it. This is caused by add-ins that set a specific position for their toolbar or don’t properly handle toolbars. It is the result of bad toolbar design on the part of the add-in developer.

Add-ins known to cause problems include:

• Business Contact Manager (BCM)
• Adobe Acrobat Outlook add-in

Outlook does not have a "lock toolbar" feature, leaving your only choices to disabling the toolbar that is causing them to move or using the default toolbar layout.

Reset Toolbar configuration

Outlook stores toolbar information in a file called outcmd.dat. You can delete or rename this file to reset your toolbars to the default configuration and Outlook will recreate it. If you haven’t customized any toolbars, outcmd.dat won’t exist.

In Windows XP or Windows 2000, outcmd.dat is located at C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook. In Windows 7 or Vista, look for outcmd.dat at C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook. These folders are hidden, so you either need to paste the path into Windows Explorer (changing the username) or change the Windows Explorer options to show hidden files and folders.

Using Word as your Editor:

The toolbars shown when you compose a new message using Microsoft Word as the editor are stored in Word’s normal.dot template. If you change a setting or display a toolbar while using Word, that setting or toolbar will be visible when composing new email too.

Follow the directions at Removing the Acrobat Toolbar from Outlook to hide or disable the Acrobat add-in.

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Last reviewed on Dec 2, 2011