Fixing The Extend.dat File In Outlook 2003

Microsoft Outlook a personal information manager, which also serves as an email application. The various advanced features in Outlook include task and contact manager, note making, journal, etc which enables the users to schedule their important days and events. Outlook is an application that Microsoft provides as a part of the Office suite. There are specific add-ins that help to enhance the performance of Outlook, and it comprises of advanced features. The extend.dat file allows Outlook to cache registry entries for third party add-ins, such as a contact-verifying program.
Sometimes, when you change the Outlook setup, errors occur. For example, when the deletion of third party add-ins occurs in Outlook, error messages pop up. Although, this is a program snag in the Outlook software and can be an annoying phenomenon, it can be readily fixed. This program bug is usually found in Outlook 2003.
You can follow the below steps to fix the Microsoft outlook cannot start issues.

Diagnostics Program

• In the first step, open the Microsoft Outlook application on your computer. Now, Click on the Help menu that would be located at the top of your screen.
• Once you locate the option, select Detect and Repair from the options in the help menu. Now, click on the button at the bottom of the screen to start the diagnostics, and let the program run.

Rename File

• Once the program runs, click on the Start button present at the bottom of your desktop. This would open the Start menu. However, if the diagnostic program does not fix the old one, you would need to force Outlook to create a new file.
• Now, select the Search option from the Start menu and type extend.dat in the search text box. Allow the program to search and find the file on your hard drive. At any point of time, you can also contact the Microsoft tech support to seek assistance with fixing the Microsoft outlook cannot start issues.
• Now, highlight the file in the right pane on the search window once Windows locates it, and right-click on the extend.dat file; select Rename from the options that appear in the menu.
• Type extend.old and hit Enter; to change the name of the file and restart Outlook 2003, create a new extend.dat file. When Outlook opens, it would automatically look for this file.
• Renaming the file hides it. Hence, when the program cannot locate the extend.dat file, it would create a new one.

Hence, you can follow these steps to fix the extend.dat file issues in Microsoft Outlook 2003. For more assistance, contact Outlook help.