FIX: You may experience problems when you open a custom form by using the Favorites folder in Outlook 2003

When you access a public folder that uses a custom Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 form by using the Favorites folder, you may experience one of the following problems:

• Every time you open an item in the folder, a message briefly appears. The message states that a custom form is being installed.
• When you open a new instance of the form, you receive the following error message:
  The object could not be found.
• When you open multiple items in a folder, Outlook stops responding (hangs).

These problems occur because the forms cache now caches forms based on the folder that is being used.

Service pack information

This problem is corrected in Office 2003 Service Pack 1.To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Office 2003. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Hotfix information

A hotfix is available to correct this problem. For additional information about this hotfix, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: To obtain this hotfix, contact Microsoft Product Support Services. To do so, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

To work around these problems, do not access the public folder by using the Favorites folder. Instead, use the Folder List option in the Outlook navigation pane, and then locate the specific public folder.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section. This problem was first corrected in Office 2003 Service Pack 1.

If you experience one of these problems, clear the forms cache to avoid additional issues. To do so, follow these steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. Click the Other tab, and then click Advanced Options.
3. Click Custom Forms.
4. Click Manage Forms.
5. Click Clear Cache.
6. Close all open windows, and then restart Outlook 2003.