Vista - Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window.

Does anyone have a fix for this issue?

I had this problem on a customers laptop with Vista Home Premium and Microsoft office 2007 Enterprise.

I've often seen similar errors with Office including things going wrong with Word, Excel, basically any Microsoft Office application.
Nearly all of these errors can be solved by allowing Office to re-create it's profile folders. I fixed the same problem you are having with this procedure...

1. Close all office applications
2. Browse to and RENAME the following folders (do not delete them if you wish to avoid losing any emails and address books). I normally stick an _ on the end to make it "foldername_"

For Microsoft Outlook...
C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook
C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook

For other Microsoft Office Programs...
C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office
C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Office

3. Open problematic application (Outlook in this case)

The next problem you will have with OUTLOOK is your Personal Folders file will be new and therfore empty (none of your old emails, calendar or contacts in there!).
Don't panic though, all you need to do is the following...

1. Open Outlook
2. Go to File>Import and Export...
3. Choose "Import from another program of file" and click next
4. Choose "Personal Folder File (.pst)" and click next
5. Click the browse button and locate the folder that you previously renamed
C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook_ ??
6. Choose the "Outlook.pst" file (which should be more than 1KB if it contains anything) and click the "Open" Button at the bottom
7. Click "Next" and then "Finish" and watch all of your lovely emails, calendar appointments and contacts fly back into your active profile!

Hope that works for you guys.

MrWizard

Sure I have the fix. Go to run and type outlook.exe/ resetnavpane

First of all this error has nothing to do with Vista SP 2. I had the error long before I ran SP 2. It is really quite simple to fix.
Go to run and type outlook.exe/resetnavpane

I may be a newbie here but its not my first rodeo. Enjoy

Excuse the small typo...you need a space between .exe and / so type outlook.exe /resetnavpane in run and that should do it.

Worked for me - nice trick.

Go to run and type outlook.exe/resetnavpane -- Worked great for me... thank you very much for the post..

You are welcome. I might mention that I reset mine last year and have not had any troubles since. So this seems to fix it for good.

Thanks for the help ( and the need for the space in the run direction)

I have XP and the same solution worked !!

Thanks again

Well thanks, anytime you want to boost my power rating feel free to do so. My answer has helped about 5-6 others and no-one stroked me on the back yet. I could use a little rating increase.