Undocumented Fault on Win98x

[KateYoung]

I used to work in IT Support and one day one of our clients came to me saying that everytime he went into a folder in MS Outlook the computer rebooted itself.  I trawled Microsoft and Technet to no avail.

I don't know how relevant this information is now but I know that I still run a win98se pc so others out there must be also even though Microsoft are dropping support for Win98.

So here is the solution should your pc reboot while in Microsoft Outlook Folder Files.

Check the size of your PST file (this is your folder files) if your PST file size is greater than 10-15MB then the PST file becomes unstable.

Archive your messages or create extra PST files keeping them as small as possible.

Spread your messages you want to keep over any additional Folder Files and this should reduce the amount of times the pc will reboot.

In the case of my client his PST file (folder file) was in excess of 350MB - this file was far to big for Outlook to cope with it.

If anyone has this problem I would be happy to talk you through the process of getting around the problem.  I am unware of any fix for the rebooting from Microsoft.

Moderator/Admin apologies if I have posted this in the wrong place.

[Rob Pomeroy]

Hi Kate; welcome to Computer Hope, and thank you for posting such a useful message.  Please feel free to have a look in the FAQ Solution Database, see how we do them, and then if you wish, you can add your contribution as a FAQ.  You might want to call it "Outlook: large pst files causing reboots on Windows 98".

I would be interested to know if a repair of the Outlook installation resolves the problem though.

[KateYoung]

Hi and thanks for your response

A repair doesn't work what so ever.

Tried that many a time hoping it would work.  The only solution was to breakdown the pst file into smaller chunks i.e. creating more folder files.  You get better results with pst files no larger than say 15mb but you can take it a little further on MB but I wouldn't recommend it.

I'll take a look at what you suggested.

Must admit this problem had me entertained for about a month ! LOL