Outlook 2003 error trying to open .msg saved emails on server

We save emails to network server in specific job folders as .msg files to preserve all header info and attachments.

Recently found that I could only open the saved attachments once if I tried a second time it would give the following error:

Can’t open file: <file path>. The file may not exist, you may not have permission to open it, or it may be open in another program.

Permissions were fine for the files and if I closed outlook and reopened outlook, I would be able to open each message once but once closed and reopened I would get the same error message. If I closed outlook and left it closed, then I would be able to open and close the saved .msg file as many times as I wanted – i.e. normal file behaviour. The minute I opened my Outlook 2003 and then opened the .msg file it seemed to place some kind of lock on the file and never clear that lock until I closed outlook. If I looked at a list of all open files on the server, the .msg files in question were indeed locked out to my username even though I had closed the email viewing window.

Some suggestions were rogue Outlook plugins or add-ons. I had a look in Tools->Other->Advanced and only had a few basic ones in there that I no longer used so deleted all them, closed outlook and still got the same error message trying to open the messages for a 2nd time.

Eventually I found it was due to Outlook Junk Mail filtering, or a bug with the Junk Mail Filtering shall we say. Since all my junk is filtered by the IMF filter on the Exchange server I don’t think I’ve rolled out any Junk Mail updates to the Outlook installations on my system. I went to Microsoft and downloaded a more recent (but still 2006 and hence old) Junk Mail patchUpdate for Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter (KB925254)” and this resolved the issue and I can now open .msg files saved on our server without it locking the file out for myself and others.

see also

Disabling addons http://blog.techhit.com/5527-how-to-find-and-disable-outlook-2003-add-ins-and-plugins

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