‘Program error occurred’ and PST recovery

Microsoft Outlook might stop working suddenly while it’s running and might display errors prompting you to restart Windows to start the application. One of the chief reasons behind this can be PST file corruption. The damaged file thus needs to be either retrieved from a valid backup or it needs to be repaired using a powerful PST recovery tool. For example, you might come across the error message mentioned here while using MS Outlook:

“A program error occurred. Quit Outlook and Microsoft Windows and then start again.”

The occurrence of this error message can be a result of numerous issues, some of which are listed here:

• Your system is falling short of RAM (Random Access Memory). This might particularly occur if you have opened multiple applications and programs while working on MS Outlook.

• Outlook might return the above error if it comes across a bad or incompatible extension information. This issue might result in Outlook run-time errors and might limit Outlook from starting.

• Windows based system uses swap file in order to swap the information from RAM. This happens when the system runs out of threshold RAM memory and needs some hard drive space to swap its information temporarily. Therefore, the above error might occur if your hard drive fails to afford space for a swap file. In these situations, system fails to empty space on RAM for running applications such as Outlook.

• Outlook profile includes all the email accounts and comprehensive settings that allow Outlook to access the stored emails and data saved in the application. The above mentioned errors might occur if Outlook profile being used has gone corrupt or damaged.

• Personal Storage file in Outlook is the local copy used by the application to store and access all email items, notes, journals and other information. If the file is corrupt Outlook starts behaving strangely and displays error messages as above.

• Installation of Outlook was not done correctly.

If you also face the corruption issues and their causes as mentioned above, then you can follow the measures given below to resolve the issues and get rid of these error messages:

• Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete to open Windows Task Manager, and quit the applications that you don’t require. Now restart Windows and try running only those applications that you require the most.

• In order to solve bad or incompatible extension information issues, you must proceed accordingly. If Outlook starts, turn off the extensions and to do so, start application and go to Tools > Options > Other > Advanced Options > Add-in Manager. You will come across an Add-in list, where you can clear the corresponding check boxes of add-ins that you suspect are causing problematic.

On the other hand, if you cannot start Outlook, then you would have to replace Extend.dat file. To do this, you need to search file using Windows file search tool (Find or Search). You can right-click the file and click Rename to change its extension from .dat to .old. Upon restarting Outlook, the application creates a fresh Extend.dat file.

• In case you want to make required space for swap file, you have to make sure that recycle bin is empty. Delete the unimportant files. If you are using more than one hard drive, then find which one has the swap file and make space for swap file.

• If you are threatened with damaged Outlook profile, then recreate it as per the installation (CW or IMO mode).

• In order to resolve PST corruption issues, you need to repair it. For this, you can use Inbox Repair Tool and if this doesn’t fix the corruption, use commercial products for PST recovery

• If the problem lies with incorrect installation of Outlook, then reinstall it after renaming the Outllib.dll file. Search for the file, right-click the file and rename it to Outllib.old. Now, remove Outlook using Add/Remove programs option of Control Panel and install Outlook by using Install/Uninstall tab.

PST recovery software is advanced software that is competent enough to repair damaged PST file. Use of PST recovery tools is considered safe; just select the tool that you wish to have and perform PST recovery yourself.