Comments on: How to fix "Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. Unable to open Outlook window" error

Unable to open your Outlook? In this article you will find really working solutions for "Cannot start Microsoft Outlook" problem. The fixes will help you open Outlook again with no errors, the solutions work in all versions of Outlook 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007 and lower and on all systems. Continue reading →

Comments page 4. Total comments: 226

  1. It's really helpful as there are so many solution online but this one is relevant

  2. I have Office 2007 running on my desktop. The OS is Windows 7 Pro SP1. Through my employer, I was able to download Office 2013 via the Microsoft Home Use Program (HUP). Office 2013 installed properly. However, on my programs list, I still have my Office 2007 listed along with my newly installed Office 2013? Apparently, the install process didn't automatically uninstall the previous version of Office 2007. Though my Excel and Word documents automatically open in the Office 2013 versions, my Outlook 2013 doesn't open. I am getting the following message: "Sorry, we're having trouble starting Outlook. Only one version of Outlook can run at a time. Check to see if another version of Outlook is running, or try restarting your computer."

    Obviously, I have Outlook 2007 still installed. In fact, the entire Office 2007 is still installed. Any suggestions as to how I can safely uninstall Outlook 2007 without losing all my data -- and to ensure that my old Outlook 2007 data will be available in my new Outlook 2013? Thanks for any insights!

  3. my computer decided to crash and when it restarted and went through some proceedures, the message came up as mentioned including "the set of folders could not be opened. The server is not available" So I have tried various things mentioned above. The repair tool came up with "does not recognize the file c:\ etc\outlook.pst. No information can be recovered" When I tried to retsore previous version, when I right click, restore is not an option. Also I note that the Outlook.pst file as 0 size. The archive.pst has 474,194 KB. Both have been modified today...15th Nov. Could all of the email info have gone into the archive? If the pst file is 0 size, does it mean there is no hope? There is much important info I have in there so pretty stressed about it

  4. Thank you for this! I've had to go to this site twice this week to resolve 2 separate Outlook issues. VERY helpful!

  5. Hi,

    My outlook 2013 is popping up the message 'the operation failed due to an installation problem, restart outlook and try again if problem persist reinstall. I have tried restarting severally its still the same thing. Please advise.

  6. Not sure if someone mentioned it but a good first step to narrow down the issue - create a new Outlook profile. Go into Control Panel and Mail (32bit) and make a new profile and setup the account again. If Outlook opens with that new profile it could isolate the issue to a problem with that old profile and not the program.

  7. hi svetlana cheusheva,
    thanku for your solution it will work love you.

  8. Great Fixed!!
    Many Thanks :)

  9. "Switch to the Compatibility tab and be sure to clear the "Run this program in compatibility mode for" check box."

    Holy crap! I have been trying to fix an issue with Outlook for days. I thought my .PST files were too damn large, so I have deleted, compacted, etc folders.

    I just did as suggested (clear the compatibility mode check box) and Outlook now starts up. Amazing!

    If I weren't married, I would want to marry you, Svetlana. Damn - you are brilliant, and damn, you are cute! Thanks.

  10. Thank you!

  11. Dear Sveta,

    Thanks a lot! You almost saved my life helping me to repair my principal's outlook :)

    Polina Vlasenko

  12. Dear Team,

    Thank you for the support. The points mentioned were very useful & i am confident that many would be benefited from this. Good Work !

    God Bless !

    Regards,
    Rajesh

  13. i set a password to my outlook account but now it says the pw is not correct and cannot enter my outlook. i have too many important e-mails and do not want to loss them.
    please help how can i reset my pw and recall my e-mails with no error.

    1. Hello Farah,

      Try googling for "Recover forgotten password for Outlook".

  14. Thank you Sharmila for that great answer ... Now, lert's try again ...

    Hi,
    I had Office 365 University installed on my computer but needed Office 365 Home because it has 5 installations available instead of only 2. I used the Microsoft remove office tool to remove "University" and I then installed "365 Home". Everything works except Outlook. When I try to access Outlook all I see is a popup that says -
    "Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window. The set of folders cannot be opened. The operation failed."

    I would very much appreciate any help I can get with this problem. Thanks

    1. Hello Peter,

      It's very difficult to detect the root of the problem remotely. In your case, an incorrect Office 365 setup may be the cause of the problem.
      You'd probably better contact Microsoft support service directly (support.microsoft.com) regarding this issue.

  15. Hi,
    I had Office 365 University installed on my computer but needed Office 365 Home because it has 5 installations available instead of only 2. I used the Microsoft remove office tool to remove "University" and I then installed "365 Home". Everything works except Outlook. When I try to access Outlook all I see is a popup that says -
    "Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window. The set of folders cannot be opened. The operation failed."

    I would very much appreciate any help I can get with this problem. Thanks

    1. Big thanks
      Today have been able to open My Ms Outlook, after having surf and read through your Website.
      I just resetnavpane and there it goes.
      Big thanks again
      Cheers

  16. Your solution worked straight away. It was so quick that I couldn't believe that anything had changed, but Outlook is now working perfectly with no data loss and no error messages.

  17. Hi Svetlana,

    I got issue while accessing the folder within oulook.As shown below

    "The set of folder cannot be opened"

    1. Hi Ashok,

      Have you tried all the solutions published in this article? If so, you can try the following suggestions of our blog readers':
      - Delete all credentials, as advised by Rick in comment 43.
      - Check out the troubleshooting steps suggested by Stephen in comment 46.

  18. Thanks a million, was beginning to pull my hair out! Far superior service to the amount of rubbish on Microsoft!

  19. Awesome advice - it worked!! Thank you for sharing your gift of knowledge!! (smile)

    Connected by the written word,
    Marcia/USA-Atlanta, GA

  21. This is more a matter of curiosity about a nuisance than a serious problem. Sometimes (occasionally) when I wake up my computer (Windows 7) in the morning from its overnight Sleep and try to open Outlook (2003 -- yeah, I know, but why pay a hundred bucks to replace something that usually works perfectly well?) I get this famous message -- sorry to bore you but the whole text is curious: "Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Unable to open the Outlook window. The set of folders could not be opened. The server is not available. Contact your administrator if this condition persists." Well, in the first place, this doesn't run from a server, it's standalone (other than logging into my gmail account). Nor is there any "administrator" -- this is my own computer in my own house, not part of a network like my office computer at work was before I retired. But never mind. The quick and unfailing fix: Restart the computer. A nuisance, but it always seems to work. Anyone have any ideas as to what's going on? Just curious. (Incidentally, this is a new thing, just in the past few months -- obviously I've been using this program for many years. Thanks to anyone with any thoughts.

    1. Hello Bill,

      Thank you for the information and solution. A possible reason of such behavior may be some service or/and Outlook part being initialized incorrectly when exiting sleep mode. A usual restart is tested and debugged much better and that is why it works fine. There may also be some rare combination of software and hardware causing this. You mentioned the issue had started not very long ago. Have you installed any new software recently, e.g. some Outlook add-in?

  22. We have an exchange server, Active directory domain, clients running Outlook 2010 on Windows 7 Enterprise. SP1, 32 bit.
    We have a satellite office that connects through a MPLS line to our network.
    All clients in the home office work fine. But in the satellite office on launch of Outlook it will often hang, or ask for a username and password (which does not work), or give them the error that says:
    'Cannot start Microsoft outlook. cannot open the outlook window. The set of folders cannot be opened. Microsoft exchange is not available. Either there are network problems or the exchange server is down for maintenance.'
    If they keep trying, out look will eventually open.

    Any thoughts?

    1. Hello Alex,

      I am sorry I am not able to help with this because we do not have sufficient knowledge and experience with Exchange Server. You can probably contact Microsoft support or try to find a solution on stackoverflow.com or superuser.com.

  23. After spending a couple of hours on the phone to Microsoft diagnosing this problem the following worked for me...

    Control Panel > Credential Manager

    Delete all credentials relating to Outlook/Office 365

    It then worked first time!!

    Hope this helps people out...

    Rick.

    1. I had Office 2007 installed and then installed O365. Outlook 2013 would not work with any of my profiles from Outlook 2007. Creating new profiles would auto-discover correctly, but when I tried to open Outlook it would give the "Cannot open Outlook ... The attempt to log on to Microsoft Exchange Server failed."

      Deleting the Outlook/Office 365 credentials under the Generic Credential section
      Control Panel > Credential Manager worked for me.

    2. Hello Rick,

      Thank you very much for sharing this fix! I will add it to the article for the others to know.

  24. I have a bad Office installer that creates currupted OST file for any new user that logs in. rather then reinstalling office for Hundreds of users, is there any way to fix what's already installed?

    1. Hi Alice,

      I believe the best way to proceed is contacting Microsoft Support. As an alternative, you can try to copy a valid .ost file to the affected machines.

  25. I have Office 13 and it worked fine for about 6 months but decided to crash today. I finally renamed all my ost files to tost and then was able to start outlook in safe mode. I also created a new profile just in case. Seems to be working fine after I spend about 6 hours deleting and reinstalling and then everything else above. The interesting thing I found is that in my outlook15 folder there were only 5 files... I guess once it finishes downloading all my files and email from the server I will delete the tost files. Thank you!

  26. this 'outlook.exe /resetnavpane' worked for me. thanks

  27. Repair your Outlook data files (.pst and .ost) using the Inbox Repair tool
    this option worked for me.

    thnx

  28. Hi,
    I am using Win 8 and Outlook 2007 and it just won't work! None of the above descriptions really matches my problem. I can open Outlook 2007 and it shows all folders. However what happens is that it doesn't download. It jumps to "Send/Receive Status 50%" and then it freezes. The mails don't download from server.
    I have several times reworked the account and profile. No success. It seems to me that it has to do with one of the Win 8 uppgrades (KBXXXX?) that have been downloaded and installed.
    Can you please help?
    Thanks

    1. Hi Ray,

      I am very sorry, I am not able to advise anything because I still use Win 7. Maybe someone else has run into the same problem and knows the solution? Please do share! In the meantime, I can only recommend contacting Microsoft Support Team for assistance.

  29. thanks alot it worked for me and am most grateful for your tips.

  30. Hello, I have followed this tips, but Outlook not works. I need recover lost emails, my friend has recommended to me this tool http://www.outlookfix.com/, but I want know your opinion before purchase it.

    1. Hello John,

      I am really sorry to know that none of the tips has worked for you. As for the mentioned tool, I have never seen it before and cannot say anything about its value.

  31. I installed Office 2013 on Windows 7 and couldn't get Outlook to start without the User Account alert coming up. I didn't find the solution here but you gave me clues where to look. Saw that the compatibility box was checked and had XP Service Pack 2 highlighted. Changed this Windows 7 and it sorted the problem. So thanks for the pointer. Hope this others with this annoying problem.

    1. Thank you very much for this tip, Peter!

  32. I was using Outlook 2013 and was working fine. I then had restarted my computer and my email and a couple of websites will not work. Outlook will open if I only have my Hotmail address, but the minute I add an exchange email address it no longer will open. Also cannot open website like facebook, etc. I have turned off firewall, and tested various other issues as well but no luck. Went through support with MS but they would only get it to open with out any email and Hotmail, but once I got to exchange they washed there hands. any suggestions?

    1. Hi JP!

      You'd better check this with the administrator of your corporate network. Blocked connection to Facebook is definitely his/ her responsibility. Also, there may be some specificities pertaining to the Exchange Server settings.

  33. If you go to Control Panel
    Programs
    Programs and Features
    Select Microsoft Office
    Select Change

    A box will pop up asking you how you want to Repair Office. I just did the quick repair and it fixed my broken Outlook 2013 .pst. The scanpst program did not fix it.
    (easiest way to get there is rt click on the Outlook 2013 tile)

    BTW the pst got broken when I upgraded from w8 to 8.1, so be sure to have a backup

  34. when I trying to open outlook 2013 it gives me msg two version open at least one version but I checked in add / remove programe I unistalled outlook 2010 & installed 2013 .its same problem.

    1. Hi Nasser,

      Sorry, I do not exactly understand what has happened on your machine. If you can send us a screenshot of the error message at support@ablebits.com, we will probably be able to figure this out.

  35. This is really great!!
    Thanks Svetlana

  36. i just lost my outlook 2007 *.pst file almost 3.5gb e-mail because of when i backup the outlook to format my pc and i cut the outlook folder from the directory and past it in c:\ drive and when i copy it to d:\ drive it says can't copy the file "error message" first the archive file is coped and when .pst file start coping it comes like Corruption error...and i chkdsk the computer harddisk...the chkdsk is verfiying the data for long time and when i came back home the power was off and i turn on and when i check the out look data the .pst file goes 0kb...what can i do??? please help????

    1. Hi Danny,
      I'm very sorry but I do not know any easy (and even not easy) way to restore the damaged .pst file in this situation. I can only suggest addressing some local IT professional or service that specializes in data recovery.

  37. Thanks! I've used the scanpst and all is back to normal now.

  38. loading add in menus xml: an xml parser error
    This error occured in msoffice 2013 i.e while starting any of office products this error came .need help.

    1. Hello Milind,

      Try to uninstall all Outlook add-ins you currently have. If this does not help, repair your Office programs, as described here.

  39. By creating a back up of the pst file can fix the email problem. But it is mostly important to repair pst file which will solved the MS Outlook error.

  40. If you are using O365/Office 2013 and launching Outlook 2013 and you are getting "loading profile" and it wont go away... and Outlook 2013 starts in safe mode, it is because there is a conflict with the color depth. Change colors to Windows 7 basic (16 bit color) and Outlook will load fine. Turns out this is obscure error and I noticed it when doing remote support. Color switches to basic, Outlook launches perfect, disconnect remote session and Outlook hangs again. OEM video drivers are the cause. I know for sure this is on Lenovo and HP systems using the Intel & Nvidia drivers. OEM updates did not help.

    1. David,

      I have spent two days trying to troubleshoot my problem of "loading profile" and after attempting most of the solutions above and several more I finally ran across your post regarding color depth conflict. Initially I read your post and moved on but then came back and BOOM now outlook works perfectly. Yes, I have a Lenovo by the way. Thanks much for your insight!

    2. Hi David,

      I would never think the conflict with the color depth could cause Outlook hanging. Thank you very much for sharing!

  41. This one has me confused. Outlook 2013 will open if you have a solid color desktop. Any picture or even the stock Microsoft wallpaper desktops and Outlook will not open. Have reinstalled several times, deleted old Outlook profiles and made sure there are no add-ons attached.

    Any clues appreciated!

    1. Some video drivers may also be the cause. Please see David's response bellow (comment #26) for more details.

    2. Hi Jack,

      Sorry, I don't have any idea why this may happen. The only reason that comes to mind is that your are using a wallpaper on a machine with little memory, say under 2gb. Outlook is a very resource-hungry application and it does consume a lot of resources.

  42. Thanks for a great post.

    Running Office 2013 on Windows 8

    I have tried everything but still getting issues.

    As I have multiple email addresses I had multiple PST files.

    Created a new profile and imported emails from first old PST.

    Then re-installed email address with new PST files.

    Copied imported emails to new email PST files.

    Tried to import second PST file and got a repeat of the same issue (Cannot open.....)

    Should I reinstall Outlook, or will this not help.
    Any suggestions?

    1. Hello David,
      If this is a recent problem, you may try to reinstall Outlook 3013 without recently released SP1. If this does not help, then try running SCANPST.EXE several times until it reports any errors and create new mail profile WITHOUT an email address. The latter method helped Trish in similar circumstances, please see comment 23 above for the details.

  43. I was able to recover the data. I posted my issue on the Microsoft Outlook Community site. They suggested running SCANPST.EXE several times until I did not see any errors. Then they suggested I set up a new mail profile WITHOUT an email address, and try opening it up that way. It worked. Then I closed it and then opened it in my regular profile. Thank Goodness for that. I deleted the second profile, but it's good to know.

    Thanks...Trish :)

    1. Wonderful! Thank you very much for sharing the solution here.

  44. So I have been using Outlook 2013 on my Windows 8.1 laptop for three months. I was initially about to import ALL my old files from my old computer. Had all my old emails under "archive.pst". Last week I set up a new email account for work (MS Exchange server), and it worked fine. This morning, while I was looking at some options, Outlook crashed. I couldn't restart it, and in the end, I had to delete all my accounts and recreate them. This time I did not create the MS Exchange account, only the two Gmail accounts. I was able to open Outlook. I then tried to open "archive.pst" and it kept giving me an error saying I couldn't open it. Figuring it was corrupt, I tried the pstscan.exe file, with no luck. Fortunately, the file is backed up by File History, so I restored the file prior to setting up the MS Exchange account last week. Still got the same error. I went back as far as Dec trying to restore the file, and no luck. At this point, I am convinced it's not the PST file, but something about MS Outlook 2013, but I have no idea what. I can go back to my computer and get the original archive file from Dec 11th that was used when I did the original import, but I get the feeling it won't matter.

    Any suggestions? I have about 8 years worth of emails I would like to have back.

    Trish :)

    1. Hi Trish,
      It's hard to say what may cause this issue and I'm hesitant to give any advice not to make things worse.
      I believe the best way to tackle this would be to hand in your computer to some local IT professional.
      You can also try reinstalling Outlook 2013 from scratch and then importing the backed up pst file. BTW, SP1 for Office 2013 was released at the end of February, did you install it?

  45. Thanks everybody I took a little from each post.

    My issue started after I deleted an old exchange email account. Then I just got the outlook window cannot open error.

    I ended up fixing this by going into control panel/mail and resetting the default pst file.

  46. Hi Svetlana, I did try Fix it by Microsoft, but it did not work.
    Your's SCANPST.EXE worked for me. Thanks for step by step instruction with screenshots.

    1. Hi Sameer,
      I'm really glad to know my article was useful. Thanks for your comment!

  47. Hi I have the "microsoft office outlook has stooped working" Error.
    Im running windows 7 and office 2007.
    Outlook opens and then a few seconds later I get the above error!
    I have tried everything!
    1.I did a repair
    2.Did a reinstall
    3.Did the scan pst.
    4.If I start outlook in safe mode it does the same.
    5.Did the reset nave pane.
    6.Created a new profile with new pst.
    7.I have even loggin in as a different user on windows.

    If I am missing something please help!!

    1. Hi,

      In order to fix this problem "microsoft office outlook has stopped working" Error. Running in Windows 7 and Office 2007.

      Go to C:\Users\JoeBloggs\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

      Find the outlook.pst file (check the date before the problem started i.e. 19/01/15

      Right Click on outlook.pst properties and select 'Restore previous version"

      Select the restore point and click on RESTORE & OK

      Restart Outlook and watch the emails download.

      Let me know how you get on.

      Melissa

      1. worked a treat for me!! thank you soooo much -

    2. Hi Corne,

      Did you set the newly created Outlook profile as the default one? Also, have you tried to restore the profile?

      I'm asking just in case, to be 100% sure you've tried all the troubleshooting steps. If you have done this too and nothing worked, I can only suggest restoring your system to some point in the past when Outlook opened normally. Of course, Windows restore will delete all recent files and programs so you need to back-up everything prior to restoring.

      Also, you can contact Microsoft support, as David reported (please see comment 17) they did help him with this issue.

  48. I had this same issue in my computer. I tried these steps; repair office, remove and re install office. I have contacted Microsoftlive support they resolved my issue. They told that they removed old office files from registry and re install the office. Now it is working well.

  49. cannot find the start icon or bar to close the computer I know vaguely there are other ways to clost the computer ctrl atlt f9 I think but it is not working what else can I do thannks Babienne

  50. i am useing outlook 2013 in my office.but i have facing one problem i can't change outlook mail downloading default path.

    1. Hi Rupsesh,

      Sorry I don't exactly understand the problem. Cannot you change the default location of your .pst file or something else?

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