Common Problems and their Solutions

It's amazing how often a seemingly innocent action by the user and an update for a program can affect negatively another. In this case, it's MS07-027: Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer, released in mid-May. After installing that update, Outlook 2003 responds very slowly when typing HTML messages. The problem in this case is two-fold.  

Outlook's Signature or Stationery and Fonts button are grayed out or won't do anything when you click it or causes Outlook to freeze or crash.

This "bug" affects only Dell laptops with Media Direct. This is really not an Outlook bug - it's caused by an add-in Dell ships with their laptops that support Media Direct. Dell laptops include an application called Media Direct and this application installs an Outlook add-in called "Outlook Setup Addin" (outlookaddin.dll) which causes problems for  

If you receive an error when opening forwarded messages (sent as attachments), uninstall Google Desktop Search or revert to the previously installed version. Reports indicate that opening Settings, Options and removing the check from the "Use Documents and Spreadsheets to open certain file types" box corrects the problem without uninstalling GDS. If it doesn't help,  

Those handy little vCard files that make it easy to send phone and address information to all your friends and associates can also deliver an unpleasant payload. Outlook does not abide by the Internet RFC (Request for Comment) that defines the vCard format. If you open a vCard that contains too much information in one  

When you save a message as HTML in Outlook 2007 (and 2010), Outlook creates a matching (and annoying) folder containing XML and THMX files. I'll show you how to prevent Outlook from doing this.

A security update released on October 11 2017 removes the Home Page tab from Outlook 2010, 2013, and 2016. This change was made for security reasons but because so many applications use Folder Home Pages, a registry key will re-enable it.

There is a bug in the Calendar's Day and Week view that causes all day events to disappear when the window size changes. Adjusting either Outlook's window size (either the height or width) or the calendar size (by adjusting the width of the navigation pane or to-do bar) will show or hide the all day  

A number of users are reporting an error message when they try to open any Office applications: "The operating system is not presently configured to run this application"

When you receive this error message: Could not complete the operation. One or more parameter values are not valid. while addressing or sending an email message, meeting request, or assigning a task, or saving a new contact, your auto-complete list may be corrupt. Some users also report getting this error when they save an appointment  

If you receive an error message when Outlook loads that states an add-in cannot be found, it's because the profile is looking for an add-in you don't have installed. The error you receive may be one of these or something similar: "<path\filename> is not a valid Office add-in" "The add-in could not be installed or  

After installing Office updates, Outlook only starts in Safe mode.

Addresses imported into the Contacts folder may not appear in the Address Book display.

When you attempt to remove an add-in, the dialog tells you that only an administrator can connect or disconnect the add-in: This add-in is installed for all users on this computer and can only be connected or disconnected by an administrator.

When you use the Resend button in an NDR to resend a message, the incorrect email address may be visible on the received message.