Preparing Outlook for first use

[JMH]

- I’ve been using Outlook 2007 for quite a while already but today when I started Outlook, I got the following notification;
“Preparing Outlook for first use.”
Then it shows a dialog where it appears to be importing by emails which is taking forever.
What exactly is going on here and why does Outlook state that it hasn’t been used before? [end quote.]


This can be caused by various updates for Outlook and is normal behavior, although the timing can be quite annoying when you really need to access your mailbox.
Outlook 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) introduced a new data structure for the pst- and ost-file which allowed for improved performance. This change to the data structure is also required for several updates when you are still running Outlook 2007 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or when you make the switch to Outlook 2010 (currently in BETA) from a previous version of Outlook. After you apply such an update, Outlook will first update the data structure of your connected pst- and ost-files before opening. Depending on the size of your data files, this process could take 2 minutes but also several hours (when you have a really large mailbox and several large pst-files connected as well).

Read more -
Preparing Outlook for first use | MSOutlook.info

 

[Barman58]

Thanks for the info.

I did think you were talking to yourself for a moment when the question and answer were in the same post :D

 

[JMH]

Thanks for the info.

I did think you were talking to yourself for a moment when the question and answer were in the same post :D

I quite often do that. [I find that I'm a good listener & I never argue with myself.]

 

[Barman58]

Sometimes I'm the only one who'll listen to me :D even when I'm actually making sense

 

[JMH]

I know exactly what you mean.
[My Labrador understands me better than I understand myself.]