Not Coz related: Desperate for computer wiz (outlook) help!

[Christi]

If an airline ticket were to show up.....

It REALLY seems to be something with your SMTP. I had one instance where I typed SMPT instead of SMTP and that will mess it up!

You could always try another ISP's SMTP settings. I could give you my Earthlink settings and walk you through how to do that - essentially, you are using another ISP's SMTP to send mail, but your normal one to receive it. It's transparent to you, recipients, etc. Just one way around a pesky SMTP. It is weird, though, that your desktop doesn't have this issue.

If you were to backup your Outlook files, you wouldn't lose anything. Just write down all your e-mail settings and do a backup. Note that "archive" is NOT the same as backup. Archive in Outlook only saves info past a certain date - it will not save your contacts! Doh!

Not sure this helps, but let me know if you want to try a different SMTP just to eliminate that from your problem. You could also disable Norton temporarily to see if that fixes it. You can also click on Help... Detect and repair in Outlook to see if that helps. Once again, though, if Outlook express is not working, that's probably not the case.

Thank you .... I've already tried this too. I configured my gmail account (which is a different ISP) into the laptop outlook and tried sending from the gmail account...same problem...outlook won't let anything out.

The process I usually go through to back-up e-mail from one computer to the other is this:
My computer
C drive
documents & settings
user (me)
local settings
application data
microsoft
outlook

I copy the outlook data file over to a flash drive, and then import it into my laptop the same way...and voila, i have the same e-mail files on both computers.

I assume if I copy my outlook files onto my flash drive before I uninstall and then reinstall, I'll be ok?

Nancy, yes, I've tried that to I'm so frustrated...haha!

 

[ggunn]

QUESTION:
If I uninstall and then reinstall Outlook (and or MS Office completely), will I lose existing files???

Normally not, but I'd make a duplicate of the directory where your inbox resides as a belt-and-suspenders approach.

 

[mbs]

When weird things happen esp blocking, a firewall is the first place to check... You replied before you checked and don't think that's it. How did you check? Is there a log on your software firewall that shows what is being blocked? If it has the option, temporarily disabling the firewall and trying again is worth a shot (although some firewalls are not that easy to disable without completely uninstalling).

 

[H2ODoc]

Thank you .... I've already tried this too. I configured my gmail account (which is a different ISP) into the laptop outlook and tried sending from the gmail account...same problem...outlook won't let anything out.

What were the SMTP settings with the GMail account? The same as your other accounts? If so, I still think the SMTP is the issue.

I use a laptop and connect to the internet with 3 different ISPs (home, office, and verizon air card). My office and Verizon accounts will not let me SEND mail using other mail accounts unless I'm connected through them at the time. There are a few ways around this. I've found that ISPs change their policies and recently, Earthlink and others have changed their SMTP policies.

If you want to try something, I'll try to PM you a few simple settings which can verify if the SMTP is your issue! Gotomypc is always an option, I guess.

 

[H20Bubbles]

Christi,

As H20Doc is stating, it sounds like there is a problem with your SMTP settings and account. If you are able to receive e-mail through Outlook I wouldn't guess that there are firewall issues so to speak.

There can be times where the SMTP server can be affected by the ISP that you are going through (i.e. it works in the office, but not at home when you have a different ISP). For example, I had to change the SMTP server to my ISP's setting's off of our standard mail server.

I could PM you several SMTP servers that you could try.

To accurately try and help troubleshoot would need more specific details on the SMTP servers from the working and non-working machines.

 

[PerroneFord]

I am an Exchange/Outlook Admin for a living. PM me and we'll sort it out.

-P

 

[chuck86]

Christi if you don't get this worked out it could be that outlook is corupt on your lap top. It seems strange that it was working and then it quit.

If you don't get this worked out let me know and I'll bring office 2000 down and we will reload outlook on your laptop.

 

[Christi]

Christi if you don't get this worked out it could be that outlook is corupt on your lap top. It seems strange that it was working and then it quit.

If you don't get this worked out let me know and I'll bring office 2000 down and we will reload outlook on your laptop.

Thanks! I actually just went up to the office to get my reinstall disk for MS Ofice to reinstall outlook...but also just PM'd Perrone

I had to get away from the computer for awhile this afternoon because I was getting such a headache! Haha!

Thanks EVERYONE for your tips, tricks and advice. Hopefully one of these things will be the magic key!

 

[Geoff_H]

I see you got it solved, what was the problem?

 

[Christi]

I see you got it solved, what was the problem?

To be honest, it's a connectivity problem between outlook and ANY server I try to connect to, but only on that computer (my laptop). We could have kept trying to fix it after two hours, but I'm convinced it's corrupt. We ran numerous traces and pings etc. That's the extent of my tech talk...hha)

Perrone suggested another e-mail program if I wasn't "married" to outlook, which of course I was willing to try. I downloaded Thunderbird (I already use Firefox) and imported all of my outlook files and I'm good to go!

Goodbye Outlook! Now today I just need to install thunderbird on my office computer and import everything and I'll be synced again!

The Thunderbird interface is very user friendly and is similar in appearance to outlook. I'm a happy girl!

Thanks again to everyone who offered assistance, I appreciate each of you!!!