I have browsed the forums and found similar questions and answers that don't seem to solve my problem.
I am running Office for XP teacher edition and for some reason occasionally NOT consistently I will be working away on something else and a new email will open automatically. It is really irritating as I am an old fart who has to look at the keys as I slowly type and I lose whole sentences since an email has opened and taken me away from the window I am supposed to be in.

Changing the auto preview setting doesn't seem to fix it. Any ideas? Thanks.

You can change your Email options to do so:
• Go to ToolsOptions.
• Then, select the Preference tab and click E-mail Options.
• Now go to Message Handling option form the E-mail Options dialog box
• Now choose your desired option (After moving or deleting an open item) from the drop-down menu.
• You can select open the previous item, open the next item, or return to the Inbox

Thanks Amanda but it doesn't address the problem. It only occurs after the computer has been asleep for a while and when reactivated in Outlook the last message to arrive is displayed rather than the inbox. I like to screen new mail so would rather it weren't in my face when I come back to the computer!