Getting Rid Of PST Files Outlook Thinks You Still Use

Back when I used Outlook 2002, I had no luck trying to get it to “forget” about a PST file I used to use for archiving email. I had this file and some others open in Outlook in addition to my main PST file. Somehow along the way, Outlook lost track of this file. No longer needing it, I tried to close it. That resulted in this message:

The operation failed. An object could not be found.

It was annoying, but not annoying enough that I dug into it. When I upgraded to Outlook 2003 earlier this year, the problem finally went away. Hurray! But then this week, it came back with a new folder I’d made temporarily to store feed data. I’d had enough. It was time to make this problem go away.

After some searching, I came across Subject: Corrupted Outlook Personal Folders discussion at Computing.Net. Turns out I’m not the only one with this problem! The fifth response had the solution. Using regedit, navigate to HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-35785*****-**********-**********-****\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging subsystem\Profile and delete that. All those *** are numbers that will be different for each computer.

Don’t do this! Don’t do this! I’ll give you an easier way in a moment. But first, more of what happened to me.

I went into regedit and found I had two different trees containing that S-1-5-21 number. Neither of them had the 35785 part, so I’m guessing that might vary from machine to machine I ignored the one that ended with _Classes. Also, rather than delete the entire Profile subtree, I went down another level into the Outlook section, then went into each of the numbered entries looking for any that had the name of the PST file I wanted Outlook to forget. If I found it — bam! — I deleted the entry.

Naturally, I didn’t backup my registry as you should. Nah, I just trusted that everything would be OK with what seemed like minor enough changes. And restarting Outlook showed that the folder was gone. Success!

Alas, a new problem cropped up. Suddenly, Outlook starting having fits when trying to look up entries from my Contact folder. I kept getting this message:

Managed MAPI service catastrophic failure.

That was pretty scary. But then Outlook would go ahead and locate the names anyway. In other words, if I typed in someone’s name, Outlook scans the my Contacts list to find a match. After my registry hacking, it still did this, but only after firing off one or more of these pop-up error messages.

Tonight, I knew I had to solve the problem. I needed to call my sister, to get ideas before making my usual dash to Amazon for last minute Christmas shopping. I typed in her name, and that changed to her email address. I right clicked to bring up that entry from Outlook with her phone number. No luck. Instead, I got this:

The name or distribution list has been deleted and is no longer a valid Address Book entry.

Geez. Yes, I could go into the Contact folder and find the info that way, but it was annoying that this other system no longer worked. So I used Tools, then Address Book and double-checked that it was still set to show names from my Contact folder. Yep, that was fine.

So I went to check on the PST file using File, then Data File Management. Ouch. It wasn’t listed, even though I was using it. Hmm. I tried adding it, even though it was already open. Nope, that didn’t work. Next, I tried adding an entirely new PST file. Voila. When I closed Outlook and restarted, now both active PST files showed.

Sadly, that didn’t solve the MAPI/Address Book errors. Worse, checking the Data File Management window again showed that both PST files had disappeared. Yes, I could use them in Outlook. However, the weren’t registering in the Data File Management window. Clicking on them just brought up this message:

There was an error locating one of the items needed to complete this operation. It might have been deleted.

Time for some more searching for help. Reconnect your old Outlook data file from Microsoft was of no help — it didn’t solve problems involving corrupted data records. Outlook 2003 Command-Lines Switches looked promising, but the cleanprofile, firstrun and resetfolders switches that looked promising didn’t help. Google Groups, which is always good for computer problems, did find plenty of people having similar problems but none of them having solutions to getting the files listed again.

Finally, I ended up going to Control Panel, then to Profiles, where I deleted the Outlook profile, the only one listed. I can’t remember why I finally decided to try this, but it solved all the problems!

That takes me back to the Subject: Corrupted Outlook Personal Folders discussion that gave me the bright idea to edit my registry in the first place. I think that if I’d followed those instructions exactly, all I would have done was deleted my Outlook profile in the same way that using the Control Panel did. (FYI, registry editing is what Microsoft recommends in this situation. However, I those instructions apply only to Outlook 2000).

So, if you’re having similar problems with PST files, deleting your profile might be the way to go. The downside is that you have to reenter all your email settings — your POP accounts and so on. Plus, I found that auto send and received was switched back on. But it took about five minutes to get things back to the way they were.

And now that I have my sister’s phone number, I’m back to Christmas shopping