Did you disable your anti-virus from scanning e-mail as Bruce suggested?
The e-mail scanning by anti-virus programs can cause all sorts of havoc,
much of it random. In particular, there have been a number of reports
of Norton causing OE too hang intermittently on an identity switch.

Also, if you are running any anti-spam software on your PC disable that.

--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm


"puzzledinmn" wrote in message
...
Outlook Express hung this morning, immediately following an identity
switch.
All I could do was switch between message headings (the messages were
blank).
I had to kill it using the task manager. Only one minimized IE7
window(no
tabs) was also running. Reducing the temporary internet files to 50MB
hasn't
helped. None of my other programs has hung.