Outlook 2003 password error (not retained)

Hello all,

My dad has an interesting problem that we have spent about 5 days trying to fix to no avail.:sa: While I was gone over the weekend, he called the Microsoft tech support to try and fix it, and despite the 45 minute conversation, it is now worse off than before.

Now, he is still running XP (too old computer to run Vista) and we both still use Office 2003 (I hate the ribbon in 2007). When using Outlook, he is getting a box that pops up asking for your user name and password. Then it would accept it and go away for about 5 minutes, then pop back up. It was annoying, but it all worked still. So we tried some stuff, and searched the internet. First he tried creating a new profile, but the error still occured. Then he tried several different things suggested on tech forums, including several registry changes (deleting the protected storage system provider key and so on). None of these worked. Next we tried a registry cleaner (Auslogics) and defrag and restarted. Same error.

My first thought was to try a reinstall. Now, Outlook will not recieve email at all. I am at a loss, and obviously a wipe and clean install of XP and everything would fix that, but that is a huge pain. I am hoping someone one here will have an answer for him.

Some other things we have tried:
Started Outlook in safe mode (still occured)
Called M$ (): Tried accessing mail through Outlook Express, with the same problem. Then he used his profile and password to log in (on our computer) and it worked fine! The tech guy then concluded that our software is at fault not M$'s (duh) though I have to agree a little.
Tried changing the webmail password and reset that. (still occured)

We can still get email in the cox webmail, so we know that is not the problem.

I know these are the Vista forums, but they are also the best help forums I have ever seen, and I know a lot of you use XP, or have used it. Anyways, thanks in advance for the help!

~Lordbob

try deleting that mail account (cox) and its settings, and then set it up again.

Yeah, that won't work.

Turns out we got it fixed, but have no idea how. I don't know which one worked, but it did.

Part of it was the M$ guy had him change the account user name to something that was wrong. So we fixed that, and now it works.

~Lordbob

Wow that is frustrating, glad you got it fixed.
Usually I have seen that problem in the two situtations off the top of my head.

1) the Pst file is stored on a network drive on the home network for data backup.(microsoft says this is a bad thing) also that might explain why hes getting the window every so often.
2) the pst file gets corrupted. (changing the account name might fix that)

Glad you got it fixed, its a total pain.
There are some other things involving mail sent and requested to be unsent that actually make you have to sacrifice a chicken to the schema to fix.

Yeah we are actually not sure what fixed it. I think reinstalling it did it, but his edits to the registry may have done it. Oh well. If we ever replicate it I will let you all know.

~Lordbob