Dell Media Experience crashes Outlook 2000

Problem: Outlook crashes on a new Dell laptop with transferred pst file when having Dell Media Experience installed.

I was helping a client installing a new Dell laptop.

Of course he wanted to have his files, folders and settings from the old Dell laptop transferred to his new one.

Both systems setup:

Dell Laptops, Windows XP Home Sp2, Microsoft Office 2000 Pro

Old: Norton Antivirus 2003, New: McAfee suite trail from Dell.

Before I transferred the files, folders and settings to the new laptop it was fully installed with Windows XP SP2 Home and Microsoft Office 2000 Pro.

I used Windows XP’s built in transfer files and settings and everything were nicely imported.

When starting Outlook 2000 I could see all mails, folder, etc for about 2 seconds, then it crashed. Tried several times. I was suspecting that and old plug-in was installed in the old Mail file in the old outlook installation and made all of them were out (iTunes Calendar) Transferred the .pst file yet another time. Updated the Office Suite with latest patches from Microsoft.

Still crashing.

I suspected maybe it’s McAfee’s security suite that wants to install an Outlook plug-in while outlook is not ready to take such plug-in during start up. Uninstalled McAfee,

Outlook still crashing.

Running out of options, I opened Dell Media Experience out of curiosity and found that there were mail folders in there. Why? What Dell Media Experience doing with the mails, mails/mail folders that Outlook can’t even access?

I uninstalled Dell Media Experience and Outlook started nicely.

Everything now works fine.

Conclusion: If you have troubles starting your old pst file in Outlook on a new Dell with Dell Media Experience, try to uninstall it. Maybe it works better to reinstall Dell Media Experience again once Outlook has been started with the old .pst file. I did not try that as we did not need Dell Media Experience and certainly do not wish to integrate business mails into that type of application.