VERY URGENT: Help with Outlook 2k3 and Vista

[Temetka]

Ok, finally encountered a problem beyond my skills and google-fu to fix:

I decided to reload and refresh all of the operating systems on my T41p the other day. Now being a diligent user who doesn't like to do things over and over, I backed up all my files and settings.

I was running a triple boot config consisting of XP SP2, Vista Ultimate and Fedora 7. I was also running Office 2007 Enterprise in Vista and Office 2003 Pro in XP. Fedora Core was playing nicely with Open Office.

In Vista I exported all of my e-mail and inbox subfolders to a single .PST file. I also exported my rules.

After reloading Vista I decided to install Office 2003 as 2007 is annoying (sold it locally for $150). I stupidly decided to tell it to import the rules.

Now I cannot run any rules, I cannot modify the rules and I cannot delete them. I have removed and re-loaded Office 2003 (with reboots in between). For some reason the rules are still there!

So how do I remove a corrupted set of rules? I cannot delete them (as the box is greyed out). I get about 100 e-mails a day and my rules are set up to filter them into their corresponding folders.

If anyone has any suggestions or reasons as to why the rules would still be in Outlook (even though I uninstalled, rebooted, then re-installed), any help would be great.

[arni]

Have you already checked this two MSKB articles?

http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B826265

and this one:

http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B924297

[Temetka]

The first link was useless.

The second link it helpful. Now I have run into another problem. The MfcMapi tool wants me turn turn off cached mode. However this setting is only available for accounts that use a Microsoft Exchange Server. My account(s) are POP3 and IMAP.

Thanks for the help so far, but I am still looking for a solution.

[K0LO]

Temetka:

The MfcMapi tool wants me turn turn off cached mode. However this setting is only available for accounts that use a Microsoft Exchange Server. My account(s) are POP3 and IMAP.

Then you are not using cached mode so proceed.

I ran across this article. There is a cleanrules switch that you can start Outlook with. If that doesn't work, then try this:

When you uninstall Outlook it does not remove everything. This is in case you are going to reinstall; you won't need to re-create every setting.

I'm not smart enough to know where Outlook stores its rules, but here's something that you could try. Uninstall Outlook again. After uninstalling and rebooting, look in the following two places:

C:\Users\Your_user_name\AppData\Local\Microsoft
C:\Users\Your_user_name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft

Each of these locations will have an "Outlook" folder. Delete each of the Outlook folders and reinstall. Re-import your .pst file and see if the rules have been deleted this time. Of course if Outlook rules are stored in the .pst file then this probably won't work.

[steveg47]

I believe Outlook 2003 keeps it's rules in a file with the extension "rwz". Do a search on your C: (including hidden and system files) for any file with the rwz extension and rename it to some other extension. This hopefully will get you back to Outlook with no rules at which point you should be able to create new rules.
Uninstalling Outlook should not be necessary.