Try shutting right down then start from fresh, not a restart. that can work wonders. Might be a hold over from one of those scans.

owbist,

Good suggestion, but it didn't work. :-( I did a complete shut-down and manual start up twice since the error message first appeared, and it still shows up.

Do you have Ccleaner installed? If so start it then click the 'Registry' button on the left side. Do not alter any settings, click 'Scan for issues'. The scan may find a few or more likely a few hundred entries, do not fear these are all obsolete or left over entries. Once the scan is complete you should click 'Fix selected issues' or something similar. Back up the registry when prompted and click to remove the items show. Close program, hopefully the issue will be resolved

Note to lurkers, do not play in here unless you fully understand the implications. A wrong move and you will possibly have monumental problems. Under normal circumstances any obsolete entry in the registry is simply ignored by the computer. In not2bright's case this is a move to stop the aggravation at startup.

Thanks for the further suggestion, owbist. Sorry, though. I did the scan, fixed the issues and rebooted. I still get the error message. :-/

??

I like O's initial thoughts. Have you tried a System Restore?

DA

This should have been the first question.

What operating system?

OS: Windows 7 Pro. (Sorry, owbist, for not mentioning it at first.)

But, fortunately, things seem to be resolved for the moment. I took DA's suggestion and did a system restore (to a July 4 restore point). That got rid of my error message (yay!), but for some reason my Avira AV wasn't working properly after the restore. I uninstalled it using Revo (which was unexpectedly time-consuming) and reinstalled it. Then it wouldn't update. It said the license was 'invalid.' >:-( So downloaded the newest version and installed it over the one I had just re-installed. It updated fine and scanned. No detections.

After all this effort -- and about a half dozen reboots along the way -- things seem okay. I appreciate the input and will report back if things go awry again. :-)

Personally, I lose enthusiasm for an antivirus program that debilitates a PC. I've never seen an explanation as to why or how these incompatibilities pop up, but they do.

Do a search for "pcmag.com and antivirus" (without the quotes of course) to see a comparitive review done by a respected expert of free and not-free antivirus programs. You'll see that Avira is considered just average and that there are better choices among the free offerings.

Or, you can keep what you have. If you do, don't be surprised if your protector attacks you again.

Did you recently use some sort of inbox repair tool?

Thank you for the further comments. :-)

Snidely,

You're right. And I was tempted to try out (free) AVG again. (I had it about 5 years ago but uninstalled it because there were some compatibility issues with other programs on my then XP computer.) But I just didn't want to jettison my AV because of one issue. Since Avira itself found the three 'infections' in the first place, and since its own problems started only after a system restore, I thought I would cut it some slack and give it a second chance. I will, however, follow the ol' "fool me twice, shame on me" rule. :-)

pkponder,

No. Though I do have and use Outlook 2007, I have never used the inbox repair tool. And I have done nothing at all special with Outlook of late and have had no problems with it. ??