[Not so quick on the draw there, please, Bruce]

Your current Identity may be damaged, especially if its the default Main
Identity. Try one or more of your accounts in a new Named Identity (File
Identities Add new identity). Assuming all is well, (1) compact all
folders in the old identity, (2) import messages from the old identity into
the new one, and then (3) delete the old one (File Identities Manage
Identities).

To avoid such corruption in futu

- Don't use Inbox or Sent Items to archive messages. Move them to local
folders created for this purpose.

- Empty Deleted Items folder daily.

- Disable Background Compacting [not available in SP2] and frequently
perform a manual compact of all OE folders while "working offline". More at
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm

- WinXP SP2 only: Do not shut down your machine while Windows is
automatically compacting your message store.

- Your anti-virus application's email scanning feature can also cause such
corruption. Disable it. It provides no additional protection.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.org/


Rick Morrison wrote:
Recently Outlook Express 6.0 has become very unstable on both computers in
our household. Out of the blue OE will not display any messages . . .
just
a screen that says this message can't be displayed. Sometimes the entire
toolbar just grays out. Usually backing out of the program and restarting
it fixes the problem . . . for a while. Other times it is necessary to
reboot the computer.

I suspect that this problem showed up after an update. From looking
around
I think I'm not the only one having problem.

Can anyone tell me if anything is being done to repair the problem?

Thanks,

Rick