Today i got a call from a customer stating that Outlook 2007 was starting, but giving an error message “A Dialog box is open” trying to open or compose new emails. The problem was that Outlook started on a new user profile, and the usual Outlook/Word dialog that asks you for your Name/Initials was gettign hidden someplace (since word starts silently in outlook).
Solution is to close everything, and start Microsoft Word first. Enter your name and initials, and then you’ll be able to start outlook.
Update
Bill pointed out that if you don’t have the full Office installed, you won’t be able to launch Word. So to fix it, you’ll have to temporarily remove a Microsft Update item number KB946983. Use the control panel to remove this update, start Outlook, then windows will apply the update again at a later time.
What do you do when Outlook is the only office product installed on the machine? We are using Open Office for everything else.
Try looking for winword.exe on your computer, outlook 2007 depends on it and it should be somehwre. Start it, and then fill out the info
I had the same exact problem, and since I installed Outlook first, before I even opened up Word I came accross this error. Just as an additional note, it seems that I have also business manager on the system and I had to install the first database. but once the word (Office 2007) was opened up, this error went away.
If Outlook is your only MS Office product then enter your initials via Outlook:
Open the client, go to: Tools >> Options… >> Mail Format >> Editor Options…
Go to the box just right of “Initials:”, enter your full initials and click , and
Close the client (by opening Task Manager and doing a hard-kill).
Reopen the client; all should work properly now.
Mason’s answer was the only thing that worked for me.