Unusual Outlook 2010 Problem

I recently received a call from a customer who updated their Office software with the recently released Service Pack 1.  After the install, when ever they tried to open Outlook, the splash screen would pop up, the application seemed to start and the Outlook icon would appear on the taskbar but could not be maximized, only closed.  Looking in the event log I saw references to problems with the "crawl scope" - a Microsoft term related to some of their search technology.

Now I have seen some weird stuff as the years rolled by but this problem might be one of the weirdest and the fix was even stranger.

After researching the issue on the web, I found there were a few people with the same problem.  All the advise offered to fix the issue did not work.  I then decided to try something that I didn't think would make any difference but sometimes with problems like this you never know.

I opened the properties windows of the Outlook Icon in the start menu, (not the shortcut on the desktop although this may have worked also), and I checked the option to "Run as Administrator".  I saved my changes, and tried to open Outlook.  To my delight, it opened normally.  I was not sure that was the solution but it was an educated guess.  I went ahead and closed the application, reversed my changes, and tried again.  It opened normally, and the application worked.

You ask why would something so simple as running an application as "Administrator" fix the problem?  Well with Windows 7 and Vista, even though your normal user may be part of the Administrators group, sometimes Windows needs the actual Administrator user to make changes to the registry keys or shared files that your normal user can not access.  That's what I think fixed the issue. 

I try not to question why Windows works the way it does.  It was great that I was able to fix the problem.  Perhpas the SP1 script that Microsoft created was not intended to work this way and this was an oversight.  Perhaps this could have been avoided if the script had a run as administrator option prompt built-in.  Maybe Microsoft could consider this on future service packs.

As always, if you have any system questions or concerns call the CCS Retail Support Department at 800-672-4806 or email us.

-Bryan