Outlook Will Not Open

Purpose
Troubleshooting steps for most Outlook problems regarding opening the application successfully. This is written for Windows 7 but can be adapted for any Windows OS. Windows XP help given in

Process
1. Disable add-ins
   a) File > Options > Add-ins
   b) At the bottom, click the Go button by COM Add-ins and uncheck everything after making note of what is enabled
   c) Restart Outlook
      (1) If that worked, enable the least likely candidates (often other Office programs) and restart Outlook to test. If it still works, continue adding a couple at a time. If it stops working, remove ONE at a time to figure out which is the problem and reinstall that add-in as necessary
      (2) If disabling add-ins did not work, re-enable them
2. Create a new Outlook profile
   a) Control Panel > Mail > Show Profiles > Add…
      (1) Settings should auto-detect if the user is on the network
   b) Set the new profile as the default (Always use this profile: (new profile name))
      (1) If that doesn’t resolve the issue, set the old profile back to default and continue
3. Repair Office
   a) Control Panel > Programs and Features, highlight Office and click Change
   b) Choose Repair and click Continue. Follow the prompts until completion
4. Reinstall Office
   a) Control Panel > Programs and Features, highlight Office and click Uninstall
   b) Confirm your choice and follow the prompts.
   c) When the installation finishes, reinstall Office
5. Create a new Windows profile
   a) Log into the computer with an administrator account
   b) Back up the user’s profile by copying their C:\Users\username folder to C:\
      (For Windows XP, simply MOVE the folder to C:\ and reboot; the profile will rebuild on login. Steps 5c-g are unnecessary.)
   c) Control Panel > User Accounts > Manage User Accounts
      (1) Remove the user from this list if they exist. If they do not, click Configure advanced user profile properties from the left-hand menu and remove them from that list.
   d) Open REGEDIT and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
   e) Click through the list until you find the correct folder. This is found by looking at the ProfileImagePath value which will show the user’s profile folder location. Right-click the S-1… key for that user and choose Export. Save to C: as DONOTOPEN.
   f) Delete the entire S-1… key for that user
   g) Delete the C:\Users\username folder as long as it’s been fully copied to C: or rename it if that is preferable.
   h) Reboot the PC and have the user log in. Pay close attention to the system tray. If the removal wasn’t clean, a bubble notice will pop up and say they have been given a temporary profile. Log back in and do the process again.

Resolve a Broken Icon Issue

Purpose

Resolve an issue where the icon of a program is not showing the icon correctly in shortcuts and the taskbar when open. In its place is the broken image icon, however, when opening the shortcut’s properties the icon is displayed correctly.

Process

1) Show hidden system files
   a) Start > Folder Options (search)
   b) View (tab) > Select Show hidden files, folders, and drives
   c) Apply and leave the window open
2) Delete iconcache.db
   a) Go to C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Local
   b) Delete iconcache.db
3) Restart Explorer
   a) Task Manager > Processes
   b) Select Explorer.exe and choose End Task
   c) File > New Task (Run…) > explorer (OK)
4) Open the program to rebuild the cache
5) Hide system files
   a) In the window from the first step, select Don’t show hidden files, folders, and drives
   b) OK 

Trend Micro Deep Security Visio Stencil

We wanted Trend Micro Deep Security shapes for an as-built diagram and none existed on the vast interwebs so I made the images, figured out how to make a stencil, and added the shapes to the stencil.

Trend Micro Deep Security Visio Stencil (Office 2003-2010)
Trend Micro Deep Security Visio Stencil (Office 2013)

The shapes were modeled after what I found on this Trend VMug presentation you can view here. I have no idea if they are "official".

We used them to group with existing shapes like servers and workstations.


Enjoy!

Helpful, not pretty

This blog is providing a solution, not technical finery. There is information here and some of it is helpful. I did my best to make it clear and readable so it can be helpful. If you want fancy, it's not here.