I was trying to load Outlook 2007 when I got the following error message:
Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot open Outlook window. The set of folders cannot be opened. The file <C:\…\Outlook.pst> in use and cannot be accessed. Close any application that is using this file, and then try again.
Microsoft are getting pretty good at descriptive error messages. After drawing a blank on Google groups with that, I thought, well I should be able to find what program has it open by looking at file handles and a search for that found Handle from Sysinternals. A quick 130 KB download later and a jump to a command prompt gave me the answer:
C:\Utils>handle “C:\…\outlook\outlook.pst”
Handle v3.11
Copyright (C) 1997-2005 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals – www.sysinternals.com
YahooDesktopSearch.exe pid: 3844 B70: C:\…\Outlook\Outlook.pst
YahooDesktopSearch.exe pid: 3844 BC8: C:\…\Outlook\Outlook.pst
YahooDesktopSearch.exe pid: 3844 D5C: C:\…\Outlook\Outlook.pst
Closing down Yahoo Desktop Search, and then opening Outlook did the trick. Good old DOS to the rescue!
Apologies for the crappy looking Command Prompt listing. The paths were trimmed on purpose just to tidy it up a bit.
