How to Rectify ‘0x800C012E,5’ Error of Outlook Express

The ‘Store Folder’ of your Outlook Express is the storage house of your entire mailbox data including emails, contacts, newsgroups, etc. However, all these mailbox folders are not scattered all over the ‘Store Folder’, instead they are kept in specific DBX files. That means inside your ‘Store Folder’ you have separate DBX files for Inbox, Outbox, Sent Items, etc folders as Inbox.DBX, Outbox.DBX, and so on. Therefore, if in case this folder gets corrupt, then the abnormal behavior in your Outlook Express application is seen and you will lose access to your mailbox data as well. Such situations generally result in an error message when you try to extract data from ‘Store Folder’ or try to open it.

Let us see a practical example to understand this situation. While opening your Outlook Express ‘Store Folder’, you get an error message stating:

“Outlook Express could not be started. The application was unable to open the Outlook Express message store. Your computer may be out of memory or your disk is full. Contact Microsoft support for further assistance. (0x800C012E,5).”

This error commonly known as 0x800C012E,5. Furthermore, after getting this error if you click ‘OK, then you may get another error message as:

“Outlook Express could not be started because MSOE.DLL could not be initialized. Outlook Express may not be installed correctly.”

The MSOE.DLL file is a library file of Outlook Express. Therefore, if this file becomes unavailable due to any reason, then you may become unable to open your DBX files, and Outlook Express will stop responding as well.

The best way to overcome such error messages is use of proper backup of ‘Store Folder’. However, in the unavailability of backup, use of a professional Outlook Express recovery software is recommended. But, before performing the recovery, it is suggested check out whether your OE folders are not set as ‘Read-Only’. Follow the below steps to perform this operation:

• Go to ‘Start >> Find >> Files or Folders’.
• Write *.DBX in the Named box.
• You can find it in the Windows installation partition as well (or at some other specified place).
• Uncheck the ‘Read only’ checkbox by going to the ‘Properties’ section of each folder.
• Click ‘Apply’ to apply these settings.

 After applying these changes, if you find the same error message once again, then use of a professional Outlook Express recovery tool is recommended. Efficient professional tools repair corrupt or damaged DBX files stored in the ‘Store Folder’ without causing data loss. The risk free and simple interface of these tools makes them usable by all whether he/she is technical or non-technical user.