Saturday, January 16, 2010

Tips to 'Solve SCANPST.EXE is in use by another application' Error

Microsoft Outlook PST can get corrupt for number of reasons, which include 2 GB file size limitation, unexpected shutdown, network sharing, and more. The Inbox Repair Tool (Scanpst.exe) is the utility that is designed to fix such corruption issues. Depending on the operating system in use, the Scanpst utility is automatically installed with all Outlook installation options. So, if Outlook is not installed properly or is corrupted somehow, the tool may not work.

As an instance of such problems, consider a situation when you have a corrupted Outlook PST. You locate the Scanpst.exe file to run repair. But the process fails and it prompts an error message, as below:

“The error message is: The file C:\Program Files\Micorsoft Office\Office12\SCANPST.EXE is in use by another application. Close Microsoft Office Outlook and all other mail-enabled applications and try again.”

The error occurs when no other application or process is accessing the file. The file location, described in the error message, may differ that depends on the operating system and MS Outlook version.

Cause

The error may occur due to issues with Outlook installation. If Outlook is not correctly installed or is corrupted, the Inbox Repair Tool cannot start.

Solution

Make sure you are referring to correct Scanpst.exe file path. To resolve the above issue, you should consider applying these measures:

(1) Run 'Detect and Repair' to correct Outlook installation issues. If this doesn't help, you should reinstall Microsoft Outlook and try to re-run the tool and repair the corrupted PST again.

(2) You can try transferring the corrupted PST to another computer running Outlook and then repairing it.

(3) If a valid backup is available, you can simply delete the corrupted PST and replace it with the backup copy. However, if the emails are not so important, you can just recreate the PST.

(4) If none of the above described solutions work (including Scanpst) , you need to use a commercial product that can repair and restore the corrupted PST. These software can Scan pst and are quite effective at repairing the corrupted Outlook PST using high-end scanning algorithms.

Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair is a reliable and advanced application that repairs corrupted PST and restores it as a new importable PST. The software can Scan pst using powerful, yet safe, algorithms. The tool supports MS Outlook 2007, 2003, 2002, and 2000. The software can restore all emails, notes, contacts, calendars, and other PST items.

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