Keep Getting "Outlook closed while you had items open. Reopen items from last session?" Even Though It's Not True

Hopefully this will be my last post on this topic because most of what can be said has already been said by all users who have posted.

We have another laptop that is identical to mine, same hardware, same software, all to the same update versions, and that other laptop has never gotten the infamous popup when going into Outlook - never. I don't get that popup anymore since i did the ' /restore' revision to my icon but continue to get erratic results when I click on the Outlook icon (sometimes it opens up in a window, most times it stays minimized on the toolbar and I have to click on it again to open in a window). I'm fine with this minor quirk; of course I'd like it fixed but I can live with it. But why one computer and not the other is something of a conundrum. There has to be something else deeper down in the coding where because I chose one personalization setting or something else that is different from the other laptop, they behave slightly differently even though I set both up initially.

The lingering question in the back of my mind is when the inevitable MS fix comes through, will it automatically change that ' /restore' back to the stock or will that ' /restore' cause some further snafu and have to be manually changed back, and how am I going to know that?

First - I did NOT select the the addition of that registry key as the "solution" or "answer" to this problem.

This "solution" is Microsoft's official work around until they issue an update that will solve the problem and as you know doesn't work for all users.

For reference, these are the suggestive work arounds:

1)The added ReopenWindowsOption registry key doesn't stop the popup window for all users. BTW: That key was already in the Registry in Outlook version 2305 to store the startup option that the user selected in Outlook's options. The upgrade to version 2306 removed the options and registry key which caused the popup window to start being a problem.

2)Some have suggested that that opening and closing Outlook will stop the popup, but other users say it didn't work for them.

3)Other users say that having Outlook settings to save it settings in the Cloud stops the popup, but there are other users that do not save their settings to the Cloud and do not get the popups indicating that setting may not affect the popup.

4)One method that is 100% effective in solving the popup problem is to stop updates and revert to Outlook version 2305. Wait till Microsoft releases an update that fixes this problem and begin updating again. You must have a Click 2 Run version of Outlook.

5)I have never gotten the popup message when I open Outlook, even after automatic updates. I do not save any Outlook settings to the cloud. I do not keep any emails on the mail server (delete all after downloading). I did not add the registry key after it was removed by the update. I reverted to version 2305 and the registry key was added by the update to a prior version. I then updated to version 2307 (by-passing version 2306) which removes the Startup Options on the General page of Outlook's Options, but the registry key and its setting remain in the Registry.

The choice is yours to try.

Another option that might work is to open Outlook Offline and see if the popup message occurs. After Outlook is open, click the Offline button to toggle to go Online to get your emails. Opening and going online at the same time may be triggering these popup boxes. If you decide to try this, the following link is to the instructions for how to open Outlook Offline/Online.

Open Outlook Offline

Thank you for sharing a solution. Unfortunately, it does not work on my machine. Please see the below screenshots. Do you have any suggestions to resolve the issue on my machine?

Thank you.

This was never a problem until within the last two months (today is 8/18/23). Something caused this issue to arise, probably a Win update. The registry flag does not work for me nor does the trick of opening Outlook twice. I think the only solution will have to come from Microsoft, a coder must look into what triggers this message and what goes wrong to cause it to launch. Along with that, the coder's supervisor should look into what useful purpose the message popup serves in the first place. The simplest answer is for MS to simply delete the code that pops up the message and send out a patch to the zillions of people who have this problem.