admin | February 1st, 2018 | Windows Outlook
"Sorry, we’re having trouble starting Outlook. Only one version of Outlook can run at a time. Check to see if another version of Outlooks is running, or try restarting your computer."
There are a couple of users getting this error while working with Microsoft Outlook application.
In this blog, we are going to discuss the solutions to resolve this Outlook error in a hassle-free manner. Also, some of the reasons for such Outlook errors also figured out.
Unable to start Microsoft Outlook; Cannot start MS Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook Window; Cannot start Microsoft Outlook there is not enough memory. Such Outlook errors occur when there are issues related to internet or the system. The issues with an Internet connection can be due to infrequent connectivity, modem or router configuration, ISP restrictions, low speed, local system configuration issues etc. The machine errors appear when the system has applications, drivers, Windows, etc, which are not updated or of old versions. In some cases, the performance causing the corruption of files, directories, registry and other the data affecting the hard drive of the system, leads to such MS Outlook errors.
One can recognize the error as while clicking on the Outlook’s icon, an hourglass appears and it hangs/ freezes for some time. After it, you will get the "Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook" error or any other like mentioned above.
According to Microsoft, the primary cause of such issues is a corrupted/damaged Navigation Pane settings file -profilename.xml, where the “profilename” is the name of the Outlook profile of the user. If the size of the file is shown as 0 KB, it means that the file corrupted. As such, there isn’t any exact reason for this, but all the versions of Microsoft Outlook from 2003 to the latest Outlook 2016 may get affected by this.
There might be some other reasons also responsible for the Outlook errors like this, such as the compatibility mode, profile corruption issue, an older Outlook version, etc. Last but not the least, when any of the Outlook data file (.pst or .ost) was deleted, crashed, or damaged for the reason of incorrect uninstallation or reinstallation of Microsoft Outlook.
Whatever may be the reason is, the result is the same – you cannot open the Outlook window because of "Sorry, we’re having trouble starting Outlook. Only one version of Outlook can run at a time. Check to see if another version of Outlooks is running, or try restarting your computer." error.
Depending on the Outlook versions according to the different users, this error message varies correspondingly.
There are several situations faced by users when their Outlook PST files are damaged and encounter different error messages. These messages can occur for many possible reasons and one of the reasons is corruption of the PST file. Therefore, it is recommended to use SysTools PST file repair tool and get rid of the corruption in few clicks.
These tips cover other, the less frequent scenarios, and more specific errors. There are several solutions to resolve different Outlook errors, some of them are as follows:
For System Files:
For Internet Explorer Junk Files:
While working with Microsoft Outlook, every user faces one or the other issue, and mostly are resolved by starting Outlook in safe mode. If the Outlook application works well in the Safe mode, it means that the problem is with one of add-ins.
To open Outlook in Safe Mode:
To Disable Add-ins:
Note: Leave a space between outlook.exe and /
If the above solutions doesn’t give a positive result, then make sure that the Outlook application is set as the default email client. Also check that the MAILTO protocol for Microsoft Office Outlook is enabled on your system, via following steps:
If the compatibility mode is enabled, then disable it. If not, don’t even consider it.
To turn off the compatibility mode, follow the steps:
Note: In this case some of the recent emails, appointments, etc. might be lost.
In most of the Outlook issues, the corrupted Navigation Pane settings file is the reason that prevents Outlook from starting well, so the first thing to do is to mend this nav pane.
Go thorugh the steps given below to reset navigation pane:
Note: There is a gap between outlook.exe and /resetnavpane.
Delete the Navigation Pane Settings File
If in case, the Navigation pane configuration file is not recovered, nor did the automatic fix provided by Microsoft work. Then, it is recommended to delete the XML file which stores the navigation pane settings. Go through the following steps for the same:
If you are unable to fix "Sorry, we’re having trouble starting Outlook. Only one version of Outlook can run at a time. Check to see if another version of Outlooks is running, or try restarting your computer." Outlook error using the above approaches, then the following two solutions will definitely resolve this Outlook error.
If you have already reinstalled the Outlook application and something went wrong during the uninstallation of its previous version, then the default Outlook data file (PST/OST) might have been deleted or corrupted, and this is the reason why you are unable to open Outlook.
In this case error like “Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. The file Outlook.pst is not a personal folders file.” occurs.
So, it is suggested to repair outlook.pst file using scanpst.exe or via Inbox Repair tool.
The above-mentioned solutions address the most frequent reasons for Microsoft Outlook starting problems and resolve the errors in most of the scenarios. If against all expectations the Outlook application still won’t open, then try the creating a new profile as given below.
If the above solution of repairing or restoring outlook.pst file doesn’t work, then one of the best solutions is to create a new Outlook mail profile in order to resolve this problem.
If it does, then copy the current Outlook data file (.pst/.ost) from the damaged mail profile to the newly created one. Follow the steps:
The above discussed manual ways to resolve "Sorry, we’re having trouble starting Outlook. Only one version of Outlook can run at a time. Check to see if another version of Outlooks is running, or try restarting your computer." error, are hassle-free and can be easily implemented by any Microsoft user. These solutions can also be tried to troubleshoot some other Outlook errors such as Cannot start MS Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook Window, Unable to start Microsoft Outlook, Cannot start Microsoft Outlook there is not enough memory, etc. If in case, an Outlook error not fixed by any of these approaches, then it is recommended to opt a relevant third-party tool to resolve the issue.