When I open Outlook97, new e-mails won't open until I click on Tools/Check for new mail (or hit F5 key). Also, when I send an email, it stays in the Outbox until I hit F5 again. Nothing comes in or goes out until I manually force it through. I know this is not right....thanks for any help.

In OE, Tools/Options/Send, select "Send messages immediately" and Tools/Options/General, select "Send & receive messages at startup". Also Tools/Accounts, double click the mail account you need to change the settings for, select "Include this account when receiving mail or synchronizing". Hopefully that should do it.

Might be a few things: first, might be you might have an offline folder that's synchronizing with the server, and interfering with normal mail transmission. Without having intentionally set that up, it can be inadvertantly set up when you connect to an internet connection when sending/receiving (instead of being connected to the internet first, and then opening up your mail). You might have antivirus software like McAfee doing an email scan. Transmission might benefit by deselecting that option in the McAfee settings. (In case of a virus accidentally being initialized, the system scanning capability should be able to trap it and clean it anyway, provided your utility is as current as needs to be.) Then, somewhere, I think it's in the Outlook tools/options/other/advanced/addin manager, you can deselect exchange scan which is another scan on the mail file. Sounds like a personal folder might be involved. Is it stored on a network, with restrictions on the size of the resource folder you have? Or, is the mail file so big (and maybe placed on the same drive that your system is placed on) that the hard drive is running out of space, and system resources are running slower? Also, depends on how big your personal folders mail file (.pst) is, and how smoothly it can operate after doing many adds/deletes in it. It might need to be first compacted (kind of like a defrag utility, which will remove all the "holes" in the file) by going into tools/services, double click on the personal folder and click compact now. There you can also see what the directory path for the file is. make a note of it, because... The mail file might be somewhat corrupted, and you might need to do a little repair on it. (Mail files get really big sometimes; I'm not exactly sure what Microsoft's suggested limit is, and I'm almost certain there's no exact point at which one of these files will start breaking, but I've heard that trouble brews when a .pst file becomes >100Mb.) After having made sure your system's optimized by deleting temp files, scandisking/defragging, emptying recycles, etc., make sure your mail is closed, go to start/programs/accessories/system tools and select inbox repair tool. Run that on the pathname you got from your personal folder properties. You probably want to enable a backup of the file when and if the utility reports that it found errors and do you want to repair them, provided that you've got enough disk space somewhere to save the backup (filenam.bak). Whew, 'nuff said, hopefully after all our effort there's some help in this.

To Dilawar: You mentioned OE (Outlook Express?) while I'm using Outlook97...are the two related in some way? I have always deleted OE thinking that it had nothing to do with Outlook97...you've got my attention now..please elaborate...and thanks!

To Dilawar: You mentioned OE (Outlook Express?) while I'm using Outlook97...are the two related in some way? I have always deleted OE thinking that it had nothing to do with Outlook97...you've got my attention now..please elaborate...and thanks!

Outlook Express is a later version of email client than Outlook 97. Try installing OE and then check your mail with the default settings (the settings I mentioned are most probably default in there). Though Outlook 97 should not be too different as well. Just try to find settings as mentioned. Sorry I am not using Outlook 97 now - been ages that I upgraded to OE, therefore cannot give you step by step on that one. Hope this helps.