Tag Archives: outlook

You cannot delete this Outlook data file. Configuration information in the file is being copied to your new default data file

Computer Aid Posted on by

While setting up an email account in Microsoft Outlook (after some data recovery from a failing hard drive), I found myself in a typical catch-22 situation:

I had created a temporary account, and then created a second account (with the intention of making the second account the default, after I had transferred email across

After copying the emails, Outlook would not make the second account the default… I received no error messages, but the default “tick” did not change.

So the next step was: delete the first (default) account, but I obviously cannot delete a default account.

Next: go to the data file management tab, and just delete/unlink the data file, and thats when I got the message:

You cannot delete this Outlook data file. Configuration information in the file is being copied to your new default data file.

OK, so I cannot make another account the default, and I cannot remove the account, or remove the data file, because they are somehow locked.

The solution is somewhat awkward, but does work:

  • Quit from Outlook
  • Control Panel -> Email Setup -> Create a new profile
  • Call the new profile whatever you like
  • Make the new profile the default
  • Setup the correct POP3 / IMAP email account(s) within the new profile (you can add specific data files later, if you need to copy some more emails)
  • exit the email setup window (note: this was all done without using outlook)
  • restart the computer
  • start outlook & check that the accounts look ok. If you like, add data files, so that you can transfer emails
  • quit outlook
  • restart the email setup in control panel
  • delete the old profile
  • smile 🙂

transfer emails from thunderbird to outlook or between any email app

Computer Aid Posted on by

I setup a new computer for someone who had office 2003 (with outlook) on their old PC.

I also installed office home and student 2010, as it was the most cost-effective, but it didn’t have outlook.

So I decided to setup the thunderbird email client, as its not a huge change for most people.

In this case, the new owner just couldn’t cope with thunderbird, so I thought: easy! just buy the standalone outlook 2010, and export the thunderbird emails, then import them into outlook.

WRONG!

Not only was I very disappointed that thunderbird had no decent export facility (and some ineffective third-party addons), I was also surprised that Microsoft Outlook had no way of importing Thunderbird emails.

After a lot of searching, I found most solutions involved either:

  • Commercial programs that would create Outlook pst files from thunderbird (but these programs are usually time-limited, or can only be used on 1 PC)… and I had 2 PCs to convert…
  • Free utilities to export each individual email, and then import each email individually into Outlook… Not good if you need to transfer hundreds of emails

But then, I found that the mozilla website itself mentioned (very briefly) the prospect of using IMAP to transfer between email clients.

I didn’t like the idea of transferring a huge amount of data across the internet (to and from an IMAP server), but I also noticed a mention of a local IMAP email server called hMailServer

hMailServer its easy to install and configure even though setting up a server is quite daunting.

But since I’m likely to do this sort of thing quite a lot, I decided to spend the time learning how to do it (and share it with you).

The biggest problem with this is that you must be sure that both email clients are IMAP capable (some are not), and that both email clients are on the PC at the same time.

Normally, I will disable the POP3 (or IMAP) settings on the “old” email client by just changing the POP3 and SMTP server names from something like mail.isp.com to: mail.isp.comm

This means only 1 email client is actually receiving live mail.

After that, its a case of setting up the local IMAP server (hMailServer), then adding a new “local” IMAP account to both email clients, then transferring the emails/folders, and then remove the temporary IMAP accounts, and uninstall hMailServer.

I found that its actually easier than spending hours scouring the net, looking for the “right” tool to transfer between 2 different email programs.

So: download hMailServer, install it on the PC where you will be transferring emails (use the default settings), then:

When asked for a server password, just enter something simple (I use: 12345)

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At the end of the installation, run the administrator tool to setup the server settings:

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Hit the connect button to connect to “localhost”:

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From the “welcome” section, click “Add domain”:

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Enter any domain name (it doesn’t matter, so I pick: local.com), then I click Save:

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Then go down to domains -> local.com -> Accounts, and click Add:

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Create a user, give it a password, and click save (I called it “user”):

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Initially, I had some problems connecting until I realised I made a few mistakes typing the password, and the server locked the account. So it doesn’t happen again, I disabled the “auto-ban” feature & click save:

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Now leave the hMailServer admin panel (leave it running in the background if you like, or close it… it won’t matter).

Now we can setup the email client to connect to the new server. In this case I’m using thunderbird, but its a similar process with other email clients. Tools -> Account settings -> account actions -> add mail account:

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Enter the details for the server (remember, the password is the one you created for the user account, NOT the one for the server admin)

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Thunderbird then goes and tries to find this fake server, so I quickly have to hit the manual config button to stop the auto-config:

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Now I can enter the correct details for the server. Notice the server hostname is 127.0.0.1 (ie it will only look at the local PC). Hit re-test, and it will find the correct settings for the local server:

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Now you can click the “Done” button:

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You might get a scary-looking warning. Don’t worry, unless you doing this at an internet cafe, or via some other public internet connection (eg McDonalds):

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Hey, look, thunderbird now has an extra “user@local.com” account. You can now copy all your folders and emails from your standard email account to the local.com account… and its a LOT faster than using an internet IMAP server.

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Once you finish copying the emails, setup a similar account on your new email client (eg Microsoft Outlook), and then copy the emails from the local.com account to the new (presumably empty) email account.

Once the copy is complete, you can remove the local.com accounts from both email clients… restart them and double-check that you actually did copy the old emails correctly.

You can then uninstall hMailServer… but to be safe, I’d wait a week or two.

Outlook 0x800ccc78 error

Computer Aid Posted on by

This version of outlook has some unusual, and intermittent errors.

First, while sending emails, it would occasionally generate error 0x8004210B

That was easily fixed by just restarting the PC.

But then outlook would generate a more consistent 0x800ccc78 error.

I’d get this error regardless of the email size, and regardless of attachments.

The wisdom on the net said to check that the email address is correct, check your ISP etc.

I checked all those, but found nothing wrong (this account had been working fine for months previously).

I’m starting to suspect that the ISP has made some change.

The only thing that seems to make sense, is the outlook account options (the windows that has all the server settings … eg POP3 and SMTP settings).

I click on the “more settings” button.

Then under the “outgoing server” tab, I tick: SMTP requires authentication… and use same settings as my incoming mail server.

After that, sending emails caused no more problems.

Microsoft Outlook cannot send receive error 0x8004060C

Computer Aid Posted on by

A customer suddenly found that her outlook stopped sending and receiving emails.

At first, she thought that she had received a power surge, but after switching everything off, then on, emails were still not working.

I had a look, and noticed that outlook was generating error 0x8004060C

It didn’t take me long to find out that this was due to the outlook database file was “full”.

Technically:

All emails and attachments in outlook are stored in a big database file called outlook.pst

All outlook PST files cannot be bigger than 2GB, and in this case, it had reached this limit.

Once this happens, outlook starts to behave in all sorts of strange ways.

The solution is reasonably simple, but can take quite some time.

First, make sure outlook has an archive folder/account. If not, create a new archive folder. (file -> data file management -> .pst -> ok -> give it a reasonable name like “archive-2009”)

Note that you can create as many archive folders as you like.

Within the archive folder, I create sub-folders to reflect the main folders that I want to archive (eg inbox and sent items)

Next, I highlight the emails that I want to archive.

If most of the emails are in the inbox, and/or sent items, then sort all emails into date order, and then highlight all emails that are, say, older than 6 months. Use click, then shift-click to quickly highlight large numbers of emails.

Then, drag-drop the highlighted emails into their appropriate folder in the archive. This should remove the emails from the main account.

Once all the inbox and sent items (and anything else) is moved to the archive folder, then you need to compact the main database (it will not compact automatically, so you must do this step before you can send/receive emails again)

file -> data file management -> select the main .pst file (usually outlook.pst) -> settings -> general -> compact now

Compacting can take anywhere between a few minutes and a few hours, so be sure to allow it to complete.

Once this is done, the main database should be much smaller & restarting the PC is a good way to be sure that outlook re-reads the new, compacted database.

McAfee mskolplg.dll could not be installed or loaded

Computer Aid Posted on by

This PC once had McAfee installed, but it was uninstalled and replaced with another security product…

Yet every time Microsoft outlook was started, it would generate the error:

mskolplg.dll could not be installed or loaded. This problem may be resolved by using Detect and Repair on the Help Menu.

The PCs owner tried, but just couldn’t figure out how to remove the message…

Funnily, outlook would still operate normally after the initial error.

A quick search of outlook found the solution:

From outllook:

Tools -> Options -> Other ->Advanced Options -> Add-In Manager

then untick any McAfee add-in, and ok to get out of the options window.

Restart outlook, and you shouldn’t get any more errors at startup.

Microsoft Outlook: The address list cannot be displayed

Computer Aid Posted on by

After transferring outlook to a new PC (and transferring emails / contact list), a customer got a strange error when composing a new email:

She would click on the “To:” button, but instead of getting a popup contact list, she would get the error message: The address list could not be displayed. The Contacts folder associated with this address list could not be opened…

But by clicking “OK”, she would be able to select a “second” contact list from a drop-down menu in the “select names” window… Its somewhat confusing , as both contact lists are called “Contacts”… But the second one does work…

I find Microsoft have a solution to this “contact list” corruption… remove and recreate the contact list.

Ah, Microsoft… as subtle as a sledgehammer.

I found a better solution:

  • From the main outlook window: tools -> address book
  • From the Address book window: tools -> options
  • Select the “other” contact list in the first 2 drop down lists, and change the order of Contacts in the “check names” list.
  • OK out of the window, restart outlook, and now the customer doesn’t get prompted about non-existent address list.

outlook: This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer

Computer Aid Posted on by

This PC suddenly started to give an error message whenever an outlook email link was clicked:

This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer

Hovering over the link showed it began with the word: “BLOCKED:”

After some quick research, it seemed the solution was to check outlooks security options:

tools -> options -> security -> Secure content -> Zone

I changed the Zone from “Restricted sites” to “Internet”

Now when I hover over the link, I don’t get the “BLOCKED:” prefix, but clicking on the link still gives the “cancelled due to restrictions” error.

Another poke around the internet gives this suggestion: reset the IE  settings to default… ie:

Tools -> internet options -> advanced -> Reset…

But this didn’t fix the problem either.

Next thing to try was:

Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> set program access and defaults -> at this point, “custom” is normally highlighted… click on “custom -> choose default web browser -> pick the specific web browser you want to use (probably Internet explorer) -> OK

I close IE7, and outlook, restart outlook, and links will now open IE7 when they are clicked on. Hooray!

The customer that had this problem asked if it was possible that a past technician had deliberately caused this problem.

Since I had no way of being sure, I told her so… It would be both a very low thing for a technician to do, and something that required some good knowledge to implement… knowledge that can be used for good instead of evil… but who knows, there are some strange people out there.

outlook: formatting buttons greyed out (bold, underline, italics, font, etc)

Computer Aid Posted on by

With microsoft outlook, you click on “new” email, and start composing a new email. You fill in the subject and email recipient.

But when you get to writing the body of the email, you notice that the text formatting buttons are mostly greyed out (eg bold, underline, italics, cut, copy, paste, font size, font color, paragraph justification, bullets and numbering, indenting).

The solution is actually quite straightforward:

In the main email window (the one with the inbox on it):

tools -> options -> mail format -> compose in this message format: HTML

The risk of using bigpond webmail within outlook (0X80070057)

Computer Aid Posted on by

Customer was using outlook (NOT outlook express), as his email client.

I’ve not yet seen outlook configured to download from a webmail account before.

The account information seems simple enough, but every time outlook goes to download emails, it throws up the error: 0x80070057

The net doesn’t have any answers, so I decide to try the webmail directly vie ie7.

Thats when the bigpond login repies with: incorrect email or password.

OK, looks like a wrong password. But the password within the modem is correct (as we can still get to the internet).

Oh well, a password reset should fix it.

Once contacting bigpond support, we find out that the broadband was setup by my curtomers son (who is overseas, and unreachable)… and only his son is allowed to do stuff like request a password reset.

Nevertheless, the tech support lady is helpful. She explains that bigpond webmail will lock the email account if it receives more than 3 failed password attempts.

Now that explains why the internet still works, while the email doesn’t.

I try setting up a pop account within outlook, but doesn’t work either.

Looks like the customer doesn’t have any choice, but to wait for his son to get back in touch with him!

outlook synchronizing with each email received

Computer Aid Posted on by

I had setup a new PC to replace an older one. The old PC had office 2003, and customer had agreed on Office 2007 Home and student… This meant I needed to get outlook, publisher, etc from office 2003 onto the new PC.

The solution is simple: first install Office 2003, then Office 2007.

Well, it mostly worked.

Copying the old emails across was easy, but when I setup the POP account details, I hit the send/receive button, it got weird:

An install window would appear for a few seconds, then an outlook synchronization icon would appear in the notification area of the taskbar for a few seconds.

Since this happened with each email, downloading 50 emails took a long time.

While the emails were downloading, I searched for a solution, and I found many suggestions at techrepublic.com

What worked in this case was:

http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=101&threadID=206501&messageID=2178299

put simply: right click on the inbox -> properties -> untick “Automatically generate Microsoft Exchange views”

Simple huh?

Russian character encoding in Outlook

Computer Aid Posted on by

A customer has a Russian wife (who speaks very little english, and even less Australian 🙂 ). Lately, she has been getting emails from relatives, which should be written using Cyrillic characters, but they show up as just a mess of western characters.

Since I don’t know much about this, I do some research, and find some interesting bits of information:

  • an email (if written in cyrillic) should have a header field that states that the encoding is cyrillic. Thus ‘any’ email program that receives the email, should be ably to interpret the encoding field and display the correct alphabet.
  • Occasionally an email program (I understand hotmail does this) will allow emails to be typed using a russian keyboard (and they will seem ok to the sender), but the email header will have the wrong encoding (western instead of cyrillic). This will stuff things up for the receiver!
  • A possible workaround involves editing the email header (to correct the encoding)
  • There a 4 different Cyrillic encodings ( Cyrillic (ISO), Cyrillic (KOI8-R), Cyrillic (KOI8-U), Cyrillic (Windows) )
  • You can override the encoding by using the format->encoding menu (and try a few different cyrillic encodings until you find the correct one).

Once I’m onsite, I find the problem is exactly as I thought (although the wife insists on showing me websites that have programs for translating western characters into cyrillic (not needed in this case).

I first start looking at altering the header (as I’d like to automate fixing the header)… but changing the header using notepad seems to stuff up the whole message (I’d like fix it using some unix tools… but I have limited time).

I then look into the outlook format->encoding menu, and it seems to work very well… it even saves the changed encoding, so that subsequent viewings will be correct.

The only difficulty is trying 4 different cyrillic encodings, until the correct one is found (and it turns out some emails use KOI-R, while others use ISO, etc etc). So its a bit of trial and error for each email, but its the best solution given the timeframe. And she doesn’t mind some extra pre-work, as long as she can read the emails.