# Why won't Outlook Express display my emails?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 21, 2004, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-outlook-express-display-my-emails/241157 "2004-04-21T03:17:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Call\_me\_Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Call\_me\_Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Call_me_Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2004, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-outlook-express-display-my-emails/241157/1 "2004-04-21T03:17:15Z")
I logged onto the internet today to check my mail and when I opened Outlook Express I discovered that it will not display any of my messages. It’s just the body text that it won’t display… So if anyone knows why it’s doing this, how to make it stop, or how to disembowl a computer program, your replies would be appreciated, thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2004, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-outlook-express-display-my-emails/241157/2 "2004-04-21T11:45:50Z")
Do you mean that when you double click on the email Subject in the inbox, it does not open a new window displaying your email, or is the window empty? Or perhaps you are used to the preview window that displays the email body when you highlight the subject in the inbox, and now that is gone? Clarify, please. ---
**Author:** ![Call\_me\_Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Call\_me\_Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Call_me_Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2004, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-outlook-express-display-my-emails/241157/3 "2004-04-21T15:27:56Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > Do you mean that when you double click on the email Subject in the inbox, it does not open a new window displaying your email, or is the window empty? Or perhaps you are used to the preview window that displays the email body when you highlight the subject in the inbox, and now that is gone? Clarify, please. If I highlight a subject in the inbox and hover the cursor over the preview area the cursor changes to the “semi-busy” cursor (small arrow with a small hour-glass instead of the full-blown hour-glass, lol) and the text of the message is not displayed. If I double click on the subject in the Inbox a new window displays, but once again - if I hover the cursor over where the message _should_ display it changes to the “semi-busy” cursor and the message refuses to display. I _can_, however, save the email as a .txt and Notepad is ever so kind enough as to display it. I’m not even sure if I can send emails, because I tried forwarding a “blank” email to my Yahoo! account, but there was no text in that, either. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2004, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-outlook-express-display-my-emails/241157/4 "2004-04-21T21:08:45Z")
Hmmm, what version of Windows are you running? ---
**Author:** ![daffyduck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ec9cab/32.png) [@daffyduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/daffyduck)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2004, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-outlook-express-display-my-emails/241157/5 "2004-04-21T21:49:20Z")
I had the same problem on one of the machines here at work and it turned out to be caused by an MS Blaster infection. Try running [stinger](http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/) and/or the manual fixes available for this worm. ---
**Author:** ![Call\_me\_Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Call\_me\_Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Call_me_Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2004, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-outlook-express-display-my-emails/241157/6 "2004-04-22T03:41:35Z")
I’m running WinME and OE/IE 6.0. I downloaded that program, **daffy** , but it didn’t find anything. I didn’t deactivate system restore, however, 'cause I didn’t feel like restarting. I’ll take care of that tomorrow, but I doubt that it’s a virus. My first actions after discovering this problem were to update and run Ad-Aware and then updated and run AVG (a well-recomended freeware, anti-virus program) and neither of them came up with anything. ---
**Author:** ![Toddly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@Toddly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toddly)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2004, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-outlook-express-display-my-emails/241157/7 "2004-04-22T05:55:54Z")
Frank, read through this tech [exchange](http://www.gossamer-threads.com/forum/General_C8/Internet_Technologies_F37/MS_Outlook_Express_+_Win_ME_:_Wierdness_P254011/). This man had the same problem and same OS. It might help. Let us know if it works as we can pass it along to others should the problem come up. ---
**Author:** ![Call\_me\_Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Call\_me\_Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Call_me_Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2004, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-outlook-express-display-my-emails/241157/8 "2004-04-22T23:00:44Z")
> [@Toddly](#): > > Frank, read through this tech [exchange](http://www.gossamer-threads.com/forum/General_C8/Internet_Technologies_F37/MS_Outlook_Express_+_Win_ME_:_Wierdness_P254011/). This man had the same problem and same OS. It might help. Let us know if it works as we can pass it along to others should the problem come up. I read through it and deleted everything in those two directories. I was really optimistic, because that sounded strange enough to work, but alas, it didn’t. The upside is that I _did_ manage to delete nearly 300mb of crap that had piled up…which is somewhat embarassing. I used to be quite anal about deleting temp files once a week, but nowadays with my larger HD I’ve fallen out of that good habit. And \*\*daffy[/b[, I disabled System Restore and ran Stinger again - no luck there. And I wanna thank everyone who’s replied because your help has been appreciated!