Outlook Can’t Open Item

Originally uploaded by BernieC

Lately I have seen a couple of instances where Outlook will no longer open new incoming mail messages. In stead of opening or displaying any portion of the message you simply get a pop-up box that states “Can’t Open Item“.  I am not certain what has been causing the change to occur but do know how to fix it when the error starts.

The root of the issue resides in the registry of the Microsoft Exchange Server that is hosting the mail.  At some point a registry change has occured that will allow anti-virus scanning on the Exchange Information store which then renders Outlook pretty much useless for any new incoming messages.

To repair the issue take the following steps on the Exchange server(s):

1. Exclude folders C:\InetPub, C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv from virus scanning anti-virus application.
2. Exclude Exchsvr directories from virus scanning within the anti-virus application.
3. Navigate to the registry key HKEY\Local Machine\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\VirusScan
4. Look in the right hand pane for a DWORD named Enabled.
5. Set the DWORD value to 0.
6. Restart all MS Exchange services.

New mail messages should now begin to open in Outlook and the issue should go away.