Prevention

1. How to stop receiving duplicate email messages

There are a few things you can check to stop duplicate email messages.

Start by checking Rules to be sure that copies are not being made to the Inbox, and make sure that all your rules end in "Stop Processing" actions.

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Then check the task manager to be sure that there is only one instace of Outlook running. Two instances of outlook.exe running can produce two messages arriving at the same time. You will need to then determine why two instances of Outlook were running in the first place.

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Another thing you can do is to delete/remove ALL your e-mail accounts and recreate them. This worked for some people.

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Also, if your running Outlook XP, be sure that you are at service pack 2 or later. You can tell if you need to upgrade at Microsoft Product Updates.

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Finally, another person had this happen when he had two e-mail accounts set up - using two e-mail addresses, but the same POP3 incoming and same SMTP outgoing. What happened is that the second account was getting the e-mails from the POP3 server before they were actually deleted after the first account was finished. If this is the problem you can disable the receive on the second account. There is a Microsoft article explaining the problem more thoroughly at

To resolve this issue, turn off e-mail reception for one of the POP3 accounts:

1. In Outlook, on the Tools menu, point to Send/Receive Settings, and then click Define Send/Receive Groups.

2. Double-click the group that contains the two POP3 accounts, and under Accounts, click one of the POP3 accounts.

3. Click to clear the Receive mail items check box.

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2. How to prevent sending duplicate email messages

Sending multiple email messages can be the result of Norton Anti-Virus and Outlook combined. Apparently when Norton scans outgoing emails it may send it out twice. The quick fix is to change the Norton properties to not scan outgoing messages, but you may want to consult the Symantec Knowledge Base about your software.

- renaming MAPI32.DLL (in the Windows\System directory) - run FixMAPI.EXE - reboot - try starting Outlook

***************************************************************************************** To remove the OUTCMD.DAT file, simply search your computer for the file and delete it. When Microsoft Outlook opens again, it will recreate the file.

Make sure Microsoft Outlook is completely closed. Click Start, click on Find or Search, and then click Files or Folders. Make sure that "Look in" is set to (C:\). In the "Named" or "Search for..." box, type the following filename and click dll filename and click Search or Find Now

OUTCMD.DAT

Delete any instances of OUTCMD.DAT and close the Search box. Generally this file is found in the Application Data/Microsoft/Outlook folder Reopen Microsoft Outlook and it should behave normally

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When Outlook hangs right at the beginning and works with safe, the following three seem to come to the top of the list as being the culprit.

1) Rename/Delete outcmd.dat (responsible for menu/toolbar changes)

2) The first message the preview pane hits when Outlook starts is corrupt. Run SCANPST.EXE against your *.PST file to rule out corruption. If it still happens, move/delete the first message Outlook would try to display in the preview pane.

3) An addin is giving you headaches. Go to Tools | Options | Other | Advanced Options and review/disable the items listed under AddIn Manager and COM Addins.
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Now I have two personal folders...the original one will not open and says

'C.\windows\localsetting\applicationdata\outlook\mailbox.pst could not be found.

Then there was the problem of the 'organise' option not working. Well he told me that after I got rid of the extra personal folder I should ....'try starting outlook one time with the /resetfolders command switch'....Now I had no Idea what he meant by that, so after looking for the 'resetfolders command line'...anywhere, everywhere...and no where..LOL...I decided to move all my emails from the various folders into the inbox...i deleted all my 'folders', deleted all the rules...and started over again...created new folders, created new rules... then it started to work...

'try starting outlook one time with the /resetfolders command switch'.

******************************************************************************************* To use command-line switches, follow these steps: 1. Click Start, point to Find, and then click Files Or Folders.

On Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition (Me), click Start, point to Search, and then click For Files Or Folders. 2. Type Outlook.exe in the Named box, and then click Find Now.

On Windows 2000 and Windows Me, type Outlook.exe in the Search for files or folders named box, and then click Search Now.

3. Note the path to the Outlook executable file as viewed under In Folder and write it down for reference. For example, the file may be located in the path:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Outlook.exe

4. On the File menu, click Close.

5. Click Start, and then click Run.

6. Type the whole path noted in step 3, including the file name, press SPACEBAR, and then type a forward slash mark ("/") followed by the switch.

For example, if you want to use the CleanReminders switch, the command line in the Open box should read: "c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Outlook.exe" /cleanreminders

NOTE: The advantage of this method is that you do not have to go back and remove the command-line switch from the path of the shortcut. Additionally, the full path needs to be in quotation marks to preserve long file names.

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Needless to say I remove ICQ add-in in Outllook and also REMOVED ICQ chat !!

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Problem solved. Had to remove my IP stack and re-install it. Go to network properties, remove all TCP/IP protocols, restart, add them back, restart, and outlook should work.

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