Replies

rory,
A definate no to both. My Fax machine is offline and I have no PDA or portable type devices that would need synchronizing. If it could possibly be relevant, I do use the ZoneAlarm Security Suite.

John

rory,
I do not have an ‘Outlook today’ folder.

“Outlook.exe” is listed by the my file search program (Agent Ransack) four times as follows
1. C:Documents and SettingsJohn LittellLocal SettingsApplication DataApplicationHistoryOUTLOOK.EXEc1b4c359.ini
2. C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOFFICE11OUTLOOK.EXE (I assume this is the one.)
3. C:WINDOWSInstaller$PatchCache$Managed9040111900063D11C8EF10054038389C11.0.7969OUTLOOK.EXE
4. C:WINDOWSPrefetchOUTLOOK.EXE-0CC1C5E5.pf

The shortcut icon in the quick launch tray that was put there when Dell pre-installed Office 2003 Pro and which I use to launch Outlook contains the following
Its Location: field contains “C:Documents and SettingsJohn LittellApplication DataMicrosoftInternet ExplorerQuick Launch”
Its Target: field contains “Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003” but those contents are grayed out.

That filespec folder (“…Quick Launch”) contains two Shortcuts with Office Outlook in their names:

“Launch Microsoft Office Outlook”
Its Location: field contains “C:Documents and SettingsJohn LittellApplication DataMicrosoftInternet ExplorerQuick Launch”
Its Target field contains “C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOFFICE11OUTLOOK.EXE” /recycle

“Microsoft Office Outlook 2003”
Its Location: field contains “C:Documents and SettingsJohn LittellApplication DataMicrosoftInternet ExplorerQuick Launch”
Its Target: field contains “Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003” but those contents are grayed out.

I assume by following the pointers that the first of the two shortcuts above is used, although the shortcut names don’t bear that out.

There, that’s everything you probably never wanted to know about my Office setup. I really hope this lets you find what you’re looking for..

John Littell

rory,
I thought we had a winner. I saw that one add-in line was checked – AttachmentOptions – and unchecked it. Then I exited Outlook, looked at the Task Manager list, and it was gone.

Then to make sure, I rebooted and performed the six steps listed above. Open and then close Outlook two times and, darn it, it’s still in the task list two times. (I did go back to double-check the Com Add-ins section and verified that no add-ins were checked. Just two items are shown: AttachmentOptions and MailBuddy Outlook Addin, but their boxes are not checked.)

Still hoping, John

rory,
I was not even aware that Outlook had add-ins. So, looking into help and finding out that Outlook add-ins have an ECF extension, I searched and found that I have the following files: (Descriptions are copied out of Outlook Help)

DLGSETP.ECF Delegate Access: Adds the Delegates tab to the Options dialog box (Tools menu)
DUMPSTER.ECF Deleted Item Recovery: Adds capability to recover previously deleted items
FAXEXT.ECF Microsoft Fax extensions: Enables extensions created for Microsoft Fax
MSSPC.ECF Schedule+: Provides Microsoft Schedule+ compatibility
OUTEX.ECF Remote Exchange Extensions: Adds Remote Mail settings to the Mail icon (Control Panel)
OUTEX2.ECF
PMAILEXT.ECF Windows CE Support: Adds Windows CE Inbox transfer support
SCRPTXTN.ECF (Outlook Help lists Scrpxtn.ecf – Scripting Support…)
fxsext.ecf (This is the only one in the Windows directory; all others in Program Files)

Help says that they are installed automatically. I have no idea.

John

JohnGray,
Your suppositions are correct. I know that only one Outlook process is supposed to appear in the Task Manager list. That’s what is driving me crazy. And yes, SP2 and ALL updates to Windows and Office have been applied.

Also yes, I agree that using something as violent and abrupt as FsKill is asking for corrupt .pst files. What I was thinking was to combine two of the techniques discussed earlier as follows:

1. Invoke the script that Rory contributed back in the March thread to close Outlook politely. Here is the script:
Dim oAppOL
set oAppOL = CreateObject(“Outlook.Application”)
oAppOL.Quit
set oAppOL = Nothing

2. Then run FsKill to clear out the Task Manager process list. I realize that this is only a rough work-around and does not solve the cause of the problem. So I’m still looking toe ideas.

Thank you, John

JohnGray,
PsKill does do what it advertisements. At the time I first used it, seven outlook.exe processes were shown in the Task Manager list as active (although all seven had been manually exited from the screen). “PsKill Outlook.exe” immediately wiped out all seven processes.

Any other side issues to adding this to my cleanup batch file? Like will it flush any unwritten buffers before killing the application?

John

Jscher2000,
Yes, you were part of a conversation back in March for which the Recycle switch was the solution, but the code that I copied was submitted by rory. That problem then was starting a second window of Outlook while a first copy of Outlook was already open. My problem now is that the first instance of Outlook has been manually closed (though it still shows up in the task list), and then a second instance of Outlook is started causing two processes to show in the task list. Specifically, this happens:

1. Boot up Windows, Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to open the Task Manager window.
2. Activate Outlook. (Click on actual .exe file; no special shortcuts involved.) Outlook.exe shows on screen and in the Task Manager window.
3. Manually close Outlook. (The absolute normal way.) Outlook is off the screen but still shows as an active process in the Task Manager window.
4. Activate Outlook. Outlook is on the screen and two lines of Outlook.exe show in the Task Manager window.
5. Manually close Outlook. Outlook is off the screen but the two lines of Outlook.exe still show in the Task Manager window.
6. Shut down Windows.
6a. Window titled “MCI Command Handling Window” saying “program not responding”, I click End now. One Outlook is gone.
6b. Window titled “MCI Command Handling Window” saying “program not responding”, I click End now. Other Outlook is gone.
Now both Outlook processes are gone from the Task Manager window and Windows shuts down. During this experiment nothing else was done: IE was not activated nor was the default Filefox.

I admit that the above digresses from my original problem; I consider that one solved. (See next message). I would still appreciate your thoughts on the above scenario as this is what is happening when using Outlook in a perfectly ordinary way.

Thanks, John

Thank you for the replies, That referenced thread was an interesting conversation. I jumped into the middle and used the solution that had a “cscript.exe //nologo StopOL.vbs” statement invoking a script that defined an instance of Outook and then sent a Quit to it. It appeared to work as the copy that was open on the screen disappeared.

But then a new problem; actually it seems that I’ve had it for some time but did not associate it with Outlook. After deactivating Outlook – either programatically or by the normal manual method – the task remains active permanently in the Task Manager list (Ctrl-Alt-Del). If I subsequently open a second copy and then close it, a second task is shown permanently open in the list. And a third, etc. The only way to clear them out seems to be to reboot. But then, during the task closing process of power down, for each copy of the Outlook task I receive an error window titled “MCI Command Handling Window” saying “This program is not responding” with instructions to click on “End now.” Each instance of this error window clears out one copy of Outlook from the task list.

As I said, I’ve had this problem for some time but did not know it was Outlook oriented. Please, how do I get rid of it?

John

Charlotte, thank you for joining in.

Now that I know about RegSvr32, I found lots of information in past conversations. Not, however, anything regarding the error I got when I ran it. The error message is “Zip32.dll was loaded, but the DllRegisterServer entry point was not found. This file can not be registered.” Any ideas?

(Remember, the point of this questioning is not necessarily how to register these two dlls, but how to access them from VB code in the VB .Net 2005 environment. If the way is to register, then I’ll do it… somehow. If not, is there another way?)

John

Thanks Howard, thanks Mark,
Can someone please be a little bit more specific about registering my two dlls? I’ve searched through my two learning VB books “Sam’s Teach Yourself Visual Basic .NET 2003” and “Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition Build a Program Now” from Microsoft and found no such subject. And I’ve looked in the help systems of my three compilers “MS VB 2005 Express Edition”, “MS VB 2003 .Net” and “MS VBA for Access” (listed as VB 6.3). and again found no such subject. I can only assume that I’m using the wrong terms.

Meanwhile I’m exploring unmanaged code with .Net. Is this the alternative to registration??

John Littell

Mark,
I should have included this in my last reply, but, in case it helps, attached is a ziped copy of ZIP32.DLL.

John

Mark,
Thank you for jumping in. I found Project, Add Reference… and received the Add Reference dialog. It contains five tabs: .NET, COM, Projects, Browse, and Recent. The COM tab produced a list of hundreds of DLLs but did not list either my Zip32.DLL or Unzip32.DLL. Neither did the .NET tab and the Projects and Recent tabs are empty. The browse tab did list them but when I selected Zip32.DLL I received an error saying “A reference to ‘C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32zip32.dll’ coult not be added. Please make sure that the file is accessible, and that it is a valid assembly or COM component.”

Please send instructions. (Separate question: If I do get the two DLLs added as required, does this mean that all the source files are there only for information and that they will not be needed to create separate Classes?)

John Littell

To help read it, attached is a Zip of the instructions file AnArticle.zip in its original .rtf format.

Thanks guys for your participation. jscher2000, I don’t know how to follow your instructions. What is “the relevant site”? What follows is the contents of the aspx file:

John

Problem solved…

The culpret was FireFox. I invoked IE, changed every disabled security setting to prompt, and copied in the URL. I got a lot of prompts, but the downloads happened.

Thank you for your participation.

John