Outlook and 0x8004010F Errors

I recently decided to move my Documents folder from Windows 7’s default location to a cloud storage provider. So what had been:

c:\users\jim\documents

was now

c:\users\jim\dropbox\documents

When I opened Outlook, I was told that my default PST file could not be located. This wasn’t totally unexpected. but it was still kinda surprising. The user’s %DOCUMENTS% folder is stored as a variable in Windows, and software is supposed to request the %DOCUMENTS% folder, rather than an absolute path like c:\users\user\documents. This is so that If you move the folder to a server or a different partition, third-party software won’t freak out and say that it couldn’t find the folder. And It would seem that Microsoft isn’t following its own guidelines!

But anyway… no big deal, right? I clicked in the “Browse” dialog box and found the PST at the new location. Problem solved, right? Well, no. Everything seemed OK: I could send and receive email, RSS feeds and tweets – but the send\receive operation would return a 0x8004010F error:

outlook_0x8004010f

This means that the PST file could not be located… even though Outlook in all other respects seemed to be working normally.

So… how to fix? Well, you have to create a new (temporary) PST, and tell Outlook to deliver mail there, then change the delivery location back to the original (moved) PST.

Step-by-step instructions for Outlook 2010 follow:

1) Click File > Account Settings > Account Settings.

2) Select the first email account on the list, then click “Change Folder”.

3) Click “New Outlook Data File”.

4) Create a new data file. This can be any name you like, in any location you’d like.

5) In the new PST, click the + to expand the folder tree, choose “Inbox”, and then click “OK”.

6) Click “Change Folder” again, and navigate to the original PST file in the new location. Click the + to expand the folder tree, choose “Inbox”, and then click “OK”.

7) Repeat the process for any additional email accounts.

8) Close the Account Settings window. You might want to also close Outlook and delete the temporary PST file you created in steps 3-4.