When logging on to one of my systems this morning, I discovered that Windows 7 had installed updates and rebooted the system.  By itself, that wasn’t such a big deal.  But Outlook was sitting on the screen showing me the “Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook.  Cannot open the Outlook window.”

Outlook Loading Problem

This error message is fairly cryptic.  Clicking “OK” and trying to relaunch Outlook does not solve the problem.

Apparently the issue is well known enough within Microsoft that Outlook does come with a command line switch that will fix the problem and allow Outlook to open.

Start->run..then type the following -> "Outlook.exe /resetnavpane"

This problem could have been avoided by shutting down applications for the night rather than leaving them running.  However, this problem could be avoided by a little bit better design of Outlook.  Even adding some guidance to the error message would be helpful.

Rejected Email

Pasted Address

Step 2 – Click the “Check Names” button to have Outlook convert it to an email address.

Check Names

 Outlook should have transformed the email address into something like what’s shown next.

After Name is "Checked"

Step 3 – Complete the email and click “Send” to send the message.  You should immediately receive the message shown at the beginning of this posting.

What Outlook has done is “helpfully” set the email address type.  Where’s that?  Right click on the address and select “Outlook Properties” to display the properties for the email address.

Email Address Properties (Wrong)

The “problem” field is “E-mail type.”  Outlook has set it to the custom type of “MAILTO” which it pulled from the address when it was pasted into the new email.

Click the “Internet type” button to change it to “SMTP.”

Email Address Type (Correct)

Once that’s done, the email will send normally to the intended recipient.