Outlook Express Uses 100% CPU

Windows users, please don’t use the Inbox in Outlook Express as a repository to store years of mail. I was recently called out to a client’s site to debug several email issues. Errors sending mail, errors receiving mail, this folder cannot be displayed.

After Googling a few of the error messages I found most of the fixes were directed at cleaning and rebuilding the Outlook Express default folders (Inbox, Sent Items, Deleted Items).

The basic steps are:

1. Close Outlook Express 6
2. Create a folder c:\temp (if it is not already there).
3. Copy the contents of my “C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{YOUR_IDENTITY_STRING}\Microsoft\Outlook Express” to c:\temp
4. Rename C:\Documents and Settings\{YOUR_IDENTITY_STRING}\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{YOUR_IDENTITY_STRING}\Microsoft\Outlook Express\inbox.dbx to inbox-old.dbx
5. Open Outlook Express. It will create an empty Inbox and will show only one message “Welcome to Outlook Express 6″
6. From the menu, open File->Import->Messages Choose Outlook Express
7. Click Next
8. Choose Import mail from an Outlook Express Identity and select your identity (Main Identity is the default)
9. Click OK
10. Browse to the folder c:\temp
11. Click Next
12. Choose Inbox
13. Click Next
14. Messages from your Inbox will be imported and appear in your new Inbox
15. Click Finished

More information about the file corruption may be found at Microsoft.com

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