You are prompted for your user credentials when you send or receive new e-mail messages in Outlook 2007 or in Outlook 2003

If you click Send/Receive or use a scheduled Send/Receive task to send or to receive e-mail messages in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 or in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, you may experience both of the following symptoms:

• Outlook prompts you for a user name and for a password, although you have saved a valid account password.
• Multiple copies of the same e-mail message are downloaded to your Inbox.

This behavior may occur if you have more than one e-mail account that is configured with the same mail server, user name, and password.

In Microsoft Outlook 2000 and earlier, e-mail accounts were checked one at a time and in a specific order. In Microsoft Outlook 2002, Outlook 2003, and Outlook 2007, all e-mail accounts are checked at the same time. Some e-mail servers lock a mailbox when they are downloading e-mail messages. Therefore, any additional tries to access the locked mailbox produces a logon error. Outlook 2002, Outlook 2003, and Outlook 2007 interpret the logon error as an incorrect user account, and you are prompted for the correct user name and password again.

Additionally, if one or more of the duplicate accounts is configured to leave e-mail messages on the server, duplicate e-mail messages are downloaded to your Inbox.

To work around this behavior and to avoid downloading duplicate e-mail messages, configure one of the e-mail accounts not to download e-mail messages from the server. To do this:

1. Start Outlook.
2. On the Tools menu, point to Send/Receive, point to Send/Receive Settings, and then click Define Send/Receive Groups.
3. Click the Send/Receive Group that you want to configure, and then click Edit. By default the All Accounts group is created.
4. On the Accounts toolbar, click one of the duplicate e-mail accounts.
5. Click to clear the Receive mail items check box.
6. Repeat step 4 and step 5 for all other duplicate e-mail accounts.
7. Click OK, and then click Close.

Ordinarily you would not have two e-mail accounts with the same configuration. However, you may want to create multiple e-mail accounts to create "virtual identities." You can use virtual identities to send e-mail messages through the same account using a different e-mail name, a different reply-to address, or other settings.

This behavior is by design.