27th March 2002

Many people use Outlook Express because it's already there. And even if you don't use the client, I'm sure you know someone who does. For the most part, it does its job admirably. Mail gets sent, mail gets received, mail gets read. Has the program ever become sluggish on a regular basis in Windows 98? Could be a corrupted Protected Storage component. Heck, this may also be the reason why Internet Explorer pauses when you select an AutoComplete entry in a Web form. Before going any further, make sure you have a complete backup of your system. First, find "pstore.log" and rename it. Then, fire up the Registry Editor and fly to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ ProtectedStorage. Export that key for safe keeping, then delete it. Now, drop to a command prompt, CD to the Windows \ System directory, and enter: "pstores.exe -install" (sans quotes). Restart the computer to see if this fixed the problem. If it didn't do the trick, the next step is to reinstall Internet Explorer. Hopefully, it won't come to that. There is no known fix for this problem in Windows 2000 or XP.