Outlook fails to open with error: 'Microsoft Outlook' exited without properly closing your Outlook data file

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Music by Eric Matyas
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Track title: Realization

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Chapters
00:00 Outlook Fails To Open With Error: 'Microsoft Outlook' Exited Without Properly Closing Your O
00:28 Accepted Answer Score 61
00:56 Answer 2 Score 80
01:12 Answer 3 Score 0
01:38 Thank you

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Full question
https://superuser.com/questions/163385/o...

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Content licensed under CC BY-SA
https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/lice...

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Tags
#microsoftoutlook2010

#avk47

ANSWER 1

Score 80

I've found that for me this occurs because Outlook crashed for some reason but the Lync 2010 client still has a handle to the .ost file. Exiting Lync completely allows Outlook to restart.

ACCEPTED ANSWER

Score 61

Run Process Explorer and choose "Find Handle or DLL" from the Find menu.
Search for '.ost'. This will display all open handles to your Outlook data file.
Choose to close all handles to your .ost file
Start Outlook again
optionally - run C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\SCANPST.EXE

ANSWER 3

Score 0

I couldn't find any processes that had a lock on my OST. Further, closing Lync provided temporary relief since I actually need both programs running. I finally just threw in the towel and uninstalled both office 2010 and Lync 2013. I then re-installed office 365 (with Lync). After 2 days, I have yet to see this error again.