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Act9Ext.dll not loading into Outlook 2003

I have a client that is using ACT! 9 and Outlook 2003. Up until today everything had been rather peaceful on his machine. Every morning he boots his computer and is greeted by a fully functional and error free launching of ACT! and Outlook. Every evening he gently shuts the computer down and all is well. Today he boots up his computer and ACT! comes up as normal, however Outlook is now reporting The add-in "C:\WINDOWS\system32\Act9Ext.dll" could not be installed or laoded. This problem may be resolved by using Detect and Repair on the Help menu. And Outlook is now taking up 100% of the CPU time, is unresponsive and takes up all available memory. The client calls me for help and I remote control his machine to verify all he says is true. I then log him off and log in using a domain administrator account and launch Outlook. Lo and behold! The issue finds me too, the only difference is that I'm able to navigate around in Outlook and it does give up using 100% of the CPU time after it fully launches. I go to Help -> Detect and Repair and run using the default settings, no fix. I verify that the file it's looking for in fact exists, and it does. I try to install the add-in again, but there doesn't seem to be an Extension Configuration File for the Act9Ext.dll file. Any suggestions?

MightySW

Try removing it from the COM add-ins, under options, other, advanced, click on COM Add-ins, click on it and then click remove. You can also disable it by unchecking it and then re-enable it by clicking on help and then about MS OL and then click on disabled items.

HTH

ThinkSmartInc

ASKER

The client is using Outlook Web Access right now and has a lot of work to get done so I can't test until later this evening. One question I have is are the COM add-ins profile specific like the regular add-ins are? If so, I'm not going to be able to get anywhere in Outlook as it's completely unresponsive (other than I can move the window around). CPU usage by Outlook is 100% and Memory usage is 100% of all free memory at the time of launching. All you get is an hourglass when you move the mouse anywhere over Outlook (other than the title bar where the minimize, maximize and close buttons are). And I have come to find out that the client doesn't even use ACT anyway so I need to just disable all the add-ins for it. It looks like I may need to change this question :-/

MightySW

You know that is a good question, but I think that they carry over. Try to login as you and see if it is there. You said that the problem carried over into your profile so I would imagine that it did.

You can always run outlook with a switch. Click on start and then run and then outlook.exe /safe:3 This will stop the com add ins from running (it should).

You can check the switches here: http://www.techgalaxy.net/Docs/Exchange/OL2003_switches.htm

If all of that fails then recreate his outlook profile. If all of that fails then find that Act9Ext.dl in the registry and delete it. I have seen this with an old application that we used to use called blackphone. It had some DLL under outlook add-ins (registry) and I just deleted the instance of it and boom, problem solved.

Let me know what happens. In the mean time you should remote to his registry and have a look for that DLL and see where it is located.

ThinkSmartInc

ASKER

The problem of the errors carried over between profiles, but not with Outlook taking up 100% CUP usage so recreating his outlook profile sounds like it might be right on target. That or safe mode and then disabling the add-ins. There is definitely something screwy with his profile. I'll test this evening and put the results here. Thanks a bunch so far Mighty SW.

MightySW

no problem, let me know

Mike Lazarus

What exact version of ACT! (from Help | About)?

If the Profile has become damaged, try this:
1) Disable ACT extensions in the Outlook Add-In Manager: Tools > Options > Other > Advanced.
2) Control Panel > Mail > Show Profiles > Highlight and remove the old login profile (Outlook) and recreate a new login profile. (If you have a lot of mail on the Server it will take sometime for the system to resync with the exchange to download all the mail into the system cache).

You will then need to set up ACT! email again.

ThinkSmartInc

ASKER

His Outlook works when we go into /safe:3 however, all extensions are disabled and there doesn't seem to be a way to tell Outlook to permanently disable any of them. And there is no delete button. I also looked at the different switches that can be used to launch Outlook and none of them will fix the problem to where we can open Outlook in it's default mode. Also, when I go to the Control Panel -> Mail and try to remove the existing profile, I get the error "You cannot delete the account containing your mail, contacts and calendar. You will first need to create a new location for your personal data. From the File menu, click Data File Management, and then click Add." And when I try to add one it comes up stating that you can only have one per user profile (which was expected). Also, the client doesn't want to use ACT in Outlook, he doesn't like it and he'd just as soon see it go away. They are using ACT! 2008 (which I believe is version 10). Any other suggestions?

SOLUTION

Mike Lazarus

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MightySW

Ok, so his account is a .pst file? Meaning that he isn't on an exchange server? For some reason his mailbox is pointed to his personal folder. This can be tricky as you will have to move his mail/contacts/etc.. to his exchange account by exporting and moving. This can be done by opening his personal account along side his exchange account and then just doing a move on everything.

ThinkSmartInc

ASKER

MightySW, he is on an Exchange account. The error sounds like it wants me to move everything over to a PST folder. I have the sneaking suspicion that what I'm being asked to do by Outlook is to export/move everything to a PST file, delete his account on the Exchange server, let his system see that there is no longer an Exchange account so we can remove the profile, remove said profile, add him back to the Exchange server, add a new Exchange account on his local profile, and then copy everything back from the PST (in other words, a real pain in the butt).

GLComputing, The changes that are mentioned in the article require me being able to get into Outlook in it's default operating mode, however, when the add-ons are enabled Outlook becomes unresponsive. Running with the /noextensions switch disables the add-ons but you can't manage them so that you can run Outlook with its normal settings minus the unwanted add-ons (I'm pretty sure they want to keep their AVG add-on running).

Thanks again to both of you for your help so far.

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MightySW

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ThinkSmartInc

ASKER

Thank you both MightySW and GLComputing. The ultimate solution was for me to disable caching on the Outlook profile (Control Panel -> Mail -> Properties). After that Outlook opened up allowing me to disable the add-ons that they no longer wanted. Since they are running on a PC that never leaves their office, I have left caching off. It looks like one of the add-ons had an issue with something in the cache. Split the point between both of you as you both helped me to get my brain pointed in the right direction :-) Thanks for all your help.

MightySW

Glad to help bro. TS and I love to tag team!

Mike Lazarus

In your original post, you say ACT! 9, later you say ACT! 10

Can you get the full version/build from Help | About?

You might also try - http://tinyurl.com/6fmp5c

Or maybe dll is corrupted... Try to replace the dll (located in c:\windows\system32) with the one on your CD.
Then, run the ActOutlookExt.reg file in your C:\Program Files\ACT\Act for Windows folder...

Mike Lazarus

Ahhh.... should refresh before posting :-)

ThinkSmartInc

ASKER

The add-on is Act9Ext.dll but they are running ACT! 10. They never used the add-on features as it was, they preferred plain Jane Outlook. So the goal was to get Outlook stable again running in it's default mode (i.e. no command line switches) and to disable the ACT! add-on anyway (Outlook for some reason lists both Act7Ext.dll and Act9Ext.dll in the Add-on manager, but only Act9Ext.dll was in C:\Windows\system32). Anyway, they are exactly where they want to be now. Thanks again for all the information, and the information GL linked from the Sage site has been added to my bag of tricks as it could prove to be useful in the future.

Mike Lazarus

The addon can auto attach to ACT!'s history emails sent directly from Outlook.

BTW: If running 10.0 or 10.1, they might update to 10.03 - needs to be done on EVERY system sharing the database