OL97: Outlook Continues to Run After Exit with AutoJournal

After you click "Exit and Log Off" to quit Microsoft Outlook 97, Outlook may continue to run.

If you have another Office 97 program open that has the AutoJournal feature turned on, that program makes direct calls to the Outlook Journal. Therefore, Outlook continues to run until all programs that write to the Journal quit.

To unload Outlook from memory; quit any Office programs that have the AutoJournal feature turned on.

Office programs use Outlook's AutoJournal feature two different ways, depending on if Outlook is running.

Outlook Is Running

If Outlook and an Office program that has the AutoJournal feature turned on are both running, the Office program makes direct calls to update the Outlook Journal events. If you force Outlook to quit by using CTL+ALT+DEL, AutoJournal also quits.

Outlook Not Running

If Outlook is not running, the Office program makes a call to Mso97.dll which writes Journal entries to Offitems.log. When Outlook starts, the Journal processes entries from Offitems.log after a Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) idle of 30 seconds. After the Journal process completes, Outlook deletes the Offitems.log file and the AutoJournal feature writes directly from the Office program to Outlook's Journal.

If you quit Outlook, it remains in memory to continue the AutoJournal process until you quit all of the Office programs you have chosen to AutoJournal. If you force Outlook to close, by using CTL+ALT+DEL, the AutoJournal process ceases for any open Office programs.