Friday, July 3, 2009

"Outlook could not create the work file. Check the TEMP environment variable"

This was the error I had when I had installed Office 2007
Word also had this error :

"Word could not create the work file. Check the TEMP environment variable"

After a while of searching and cursing, I've finally found the solution!

First I've took a look at the environment variables, but they pointed to the right directory -> %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp a lot of sites suggested that that was the problem, but the path was/is valid when I typed it in the explorer.

After a lot of configuration swimming I encountered that outlook also uses registry keys, more specificly these:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders


The 'cache' key of both registry entries.

When opening regedit, I saw that the 'User Shell Folders' key was pointing to a k: drive (which I didn't have): k:\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files

The 'Shell Folders' was pointing to C:\Users\Whizzo\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files

So I've changed the k drive to my user profile's temp folder:
%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp

And BAM, the problem was solved!!

I hope this is helpfull for someone ;)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had to delete the "Cache" item in "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" to get rid of the error. Other than that your info is correct.

Alex said...

My friend told me an interesting story about his problems with emails. But when he was speaking something happened with my emails)) As it turned out it was a virus attack, which had been crashed my emails. Luckily for me he suggested me a solution - ost files in outlook. It resolved my trouble for seconds and easy.

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