Why do I get a shut-down error message on Outlook when I am not running Outlook?

In this excerpt from
Answercast #9, I take a look to see if Outlook might be running if you
haven’t started it or if it is set as your default program and sneaking in
when you don’t know it.

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Not running Outlook for email

If you are absolutely certain that you’re not running Outlook, I would check your auto start programs for two things:

• I would check to see if Microsoft Outlook is in fact starting up anyway when you run your machine for some reason.
• I would also check to see if something called the Microsoft Office Quickstart Toolbar is running or is being loaded automatically.

Some versions of Office are configured to run every time you login. As a result, it can load up a number of Microsoft Office programs that you aren’t expecting.

Check your default programs

Another thing that can cause Outlook to run when you don’t expect is if you click on links on web pages that attempt to send mail.

This will fire up your current email program (whatever Windows thinks is your current email program) and give you the form that you fill in to send a piece of email.

The problem is that Outlook, if you run it even once, seems to set itself as the default program for sending email. So, if for whatever reason Outlook gets run, from there on (unless you take additional actions), Outlook will be the program that gets run when you click on a link in a web page that is attempting to send email.

So, by and large, Outlook shouldn’t run if you’re not it telling it to run, but it does have a history of kind-of sneaking in in some other interesting ways.

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