Classic Outlook explodes when opening more than 60 emails

Don't do that, or risk a memory error

Microsoft has confirmed that opening too many emails at once in Classic Outlook could result in the application displaying an error before crashing. But don't worry; there's a registry change to fix it.

The problem afflicting Outlook 365, according to Microsoft, can occur when users open more than 60 emails at the same time. Outlook might then complain about a lack of memory or system resources and subsequently crash.

It's a scenario all too familiar to longtime Windows users. Badly behaved applications consuming resources until something fails is commonplace, and seeing an "Out of memory or system resources. Close some windows or programs and try again" message might trigger a sense of deja vu and irritation at whatever coding decision led to the problem.

Microsoft's advice? "Avoid opening more than sixty emails at the same time."

Alternatively, the company suggests a registry change to increase the process quota, which will doubtless delight admins who have to deal with users who simply must have more than 60 emails open at a time.

Microsoft is looking into the problem. In the era of multi-gigabyte systems, it seems highly unlikely that a lack of RAM is the problem when only 60 open emails are enough to trip up Classic Outlook. More likely, it's something to do with user interface objects and object handles.

Upping the USERProcessHandleQuota value to get around the issue might have unwanted consequences, Microsoft warned: "Increasing the process quota could lead to overall system instability because it enables all processes on the machine to have more user objects open at the same time, placing additional strain on the operating system."

And nobody wants to put additional strain on Windows. The poor thing has enough trouble keeping the ads and widgets flowing. ®