Microsoft Outlook Window Not Appearing Fix

Outlook is not my main email client and I never really used it that much. Still, I have it installed as a part of my Office 2010 installation, and I tend to use it sometimes to test a new plug-in or feature that I would like to write about. For the past month or so I have been experiencing a rather puzzling issue that I never bothered to look into until today.

Whenever I would start Outlook on my computer, it would launch minimized in the Windows taskbar. A left-click on the Outlook icon, which normally should display the window on the desktop, had no effect at all. A right-click and the selection of the task had not effect either. Last but not least, a left-click on the Outlook icon in the system tray area, or a right-click and the selection of Open Outlook did nothing either.

No matter what I did, I could not get the window to show up on my desktop.

After some playing around I discovered a solution to bring back the Microsoft Outlook window. Here is what I did:

Click on the start menu and locate Microsoft Outlook there. Right-click on the program and select Properties from the options. Locate the Run menu and select Maximized from the options. Please note that you need elevated rights to save the change. Windows will automatically display an authorization prompt when you click ok or apply in the menu.

Relaunch Outlook once you have completed the process and clicked on the ok button.

You should now see the Outlook window open in fullscreen on the desktop. This has fixed the issue only partially though. Once you minimize the window you will notice that you cannot open it up again. While you could now close Outlook to start it maximized whenever you need to access the program, you’d probably prefer a permanent fix.

With Outlook displayed in full screen on the Windows, right-click the Windows taskbar and select the Cascade Windows options from the right-click context menu.

Once you have done that, you have fixed your Outlook issue. To check that you can now open Outlook normally again do the following:

Close all running instances of the messaging client on your system.
Go to Start > Microsoft Outlook, right-click the entry and select Normal Window under run.
Start Outlook normally. If the window appears, you have fixed your issue.

Here is a video that walks you through all the necessary steps.