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- 587
A customer called me because he could no longer open and print email messages in Outlook 2007. He is running Windows XP SP3 with 3.5 gigs of ram and a dual core processor. The system struggles a little but doesn't seem overwhelmed by how he loads it. The computer was also throwing up a low virtual memory error. For starters I:
1. closed Outlook and ran disk cleanup. Then I manually emptied the user and Windows temp folders.
2. Set the swapfile to the recommended size (it was too small) and rebooted.
Afterward Outlook seemed more responsive. It didn't have a problem sending/receiving and it was possible to view messages in the preview pane, however it still would not open a message in a separate window and it wouldn't print messages (I confirmed that the printer worked fine by printing from another application)
I located all the PST files, one of which was 11 gigs. I installed PerfectDisk, analyzed the disk for fragmentation and discovered that the 11 gig PST was fragmented into over 30 thousand pieces (the others weren't much better). I started the defrag and told the customer it would take all day.
It seems to me that the extreme fragmentation of the PSTs is causing the problem, but I haven't heard yet if defragging solved it. Would you agree? If I hear from the customer that the problem is not solved what else should I be looking at? TIA
1. closed Outlook and ran disk cleanup. Then I manually emptied the user and Windows temp folders.
2. Set the swapfile to the recommended size (it was too small) and rebooted.
Afterward Outlook seemed more responsive. It didn't have a problem sending/receiving and it was possible to view messages in the preview pane, however it still would not open a message in a separate window and it wouldn't print messages (I confirmed that the printer worked fine by printing from another application)
I located all the PST files, one of which was 11 gigs. I installed PerfectDisk, analyzed the disk for fragmentation and discovered that the 11 gig PST was fragmented into over 30 thousand pieces (the others weren't much better). I started the defrag and told the customer it would take all day.
It seems to me that the extreme fragmentation of the PSTs is causing the problem, but I haven't heard yet if defragging solved it. Would you agree? If I hear from the customer that the problem is not solved what else should I be looking at? TIA
My Computer
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- OS
- Windows 7 x64
- CPU
- Intel Core2 Extreme Q6850 3.00GHz
- Motherboard
- EVGA 132-CK-NF79
- Memory
- 8 GB
- Graphics Card(s)
- Radeon R7 260X
- Sound Card
- Xonar DS
- Hard Drives
- Hitachi Deskstar 1 tb
