Today I debugged Outlook 2003 startup crash on a PC with Windows XP SP2, and no known changes/updates applied overnight (Outlook was working in the evening, and started crashing in the morning with no apparent cause). I started with the obvious — I created a new profile in Settings > Control Panel > Mail, and pointed it to an external POP3 account to exclude the possibility that the Exchange server would somehow induce the crash. No dice, crashed again. Somewhere on the web I found the suggestion to close Outlook, then delete outcmd.dat found in \Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook, and restart Outlook. No luck, crash. So it must be a corrupted installation, right? I uninstalled Office 2003 (and deleted any remaining files in c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\, reinstalled, applied SP2 and any subsequent hot fixes, and created a fresh profile. CRASH!! At this point I was running out of ideas, and were already contemplating OS reinstallation as the last resort. Fortunately the good people at Symmetrix Technologies had the saving suggestion: the system has Cloudmark anti-spam software installed, and Cloudmark had recently posted a big red alert (see below) on their support page. So I deleted the SpamNet folder as instructed on the Cloudmark support page, and the troubled Outlook installation was back in business.
