Only thing I can think of is to visit the Windows Update page and download
and install any updates for your operating system marked as Critical. It's
possible that you are missing something that has been fixed in an update.

The not being able to compact the message store is a serious concern. How
much time are you allowing for the compacting operation to complete? Are
you getting any error message or are you just shutting down the computer to
interrupt the process (which almost guarantees you will have a corrupted
store folder). For more on corruption, see the info he

The Other E-Mail Threat: File Corruption in Outlook Express:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/...orruption.mspx
--
Jim Pickering, MVP, Outlook Express
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/pr...8-1171988A62D6




"Johnno" wrote in message
...
Hi Jim, thanks a lot for your assistance however these work arounds didn't
work either.

I checked the files in outlook. The largest DBX file was 26MB and none
had
any variations such as the (1) suggested.

I created a new identity and switched to it however the same problem
occurred in this identity.

Don't you just hate computers some times. If you have any other
suggestions
it would be greatly appreciated (it doesn't look like this will be a
simple
fix).

Thanks again - Johnno.