LAN-Tech Network Management

Cannot open the Outlook window. Invalid XML

I recently came across an instance of Outlook 2007 which would not open.  A popup reported; “Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window.  Invalid XML, the view cannot be loaded”.  This was only occurring on 1 PC, for one user, in an SBS 2008 environment.  If the user ran Outlook on another PC, there was no problem so it was obviously a local problem.  Doing a repair install of office did not resolve, nor did the diagnostics suggested when Googling the issue.  Assuming it was a problem with the Xml file; I closed Outlook, renamed the Outlook.xml file (safer than deleting), and restarted Outlook to find the problem was resolved.  Should you wish to try the same solution, the file path with Office 2007/2010, on Vista\Win 7 is C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.xml   You will need to enable “Show hidden files, folders, and drives” and “Hide extensions of known file types” to view.