Outlook 2003 Crashes on opening

[Gouabafla]

I'm using Office 2003 and I'm having some 'fun' with Outlook. When I close Outlook and then try to restart it (for instance, after a reboot) the following happens.

1. I get the splash screen, then it freezes. (force a close and try and start again)
2. It says it is starting in safe mode, gives me the splash screen and then freezes.
(force a close and start again)
3. It says that it did not start in safe mode and needs to run detect and repair which it does - messing up my settings in Word and Excel in the process. I then start Outlook which gives me the splash screen - return to number 1.

The only way to break this cycle seems to be to reboot the computer before running detect and repair. If I do that, Outlook will run quite cheerfully - though my Word and Excel stuff still works fine.

Any ideas?

[The Invisible Cat]

Use Thunderbird :p

[Gouabafla]

I would use thunderbird if it had a built in Calendar and would synchronise with my Palm pilot. Much though I hate to admit it, Outlook is a superb tool - at least it was until it stopped working.

[frostbite]

A corrupt registry often causes crashes like this.

Get yourself one of the free checker/repairer programs - even if it doesn't fix it, it should improve performance.

[Gouabafla]

Thanks guys. I downloaded an Office update which seems to have fixed things though this wasn't one of the issues listed on the update bulletin.

[FJJP]

Gouabafla

Lazy, I know, but could you give me a link to the Outlook update site? I'm having similar problems. Thanks...

[Gouabafla]

Here (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdate/default.aspx) you go FJJP.