Outlook 2013 New email opens behind main window
In Outlook 2013, there are occasional cases where, when a new email is opened, it opens behind the main Outlook window.
There are various web postings about this, including advice about removing Outlook add-ins, and registry fixes.
Facing one of these recently, the following steps were taken:
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Uninstall all versions of Office from Programs and Features.
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Delete Office entries in the Program Files folder. There were a number of bits of previous Office versions present.
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Install Office 2013 from scratch, and disable unnecessary add-ins
After doing the above, the issue became intermittent. Sometimes a new email would open behind, other times correctly in front. This seemed to be a matter of machine performance. If a new email was opened immediately after changing the focus in the Inbox list, (and while the preview was still drawing), the new email opened behind. If a new email was opened a couple of seconds or more after changing the focus, it opened in front.
In this particular case, Disk Defrag on the C: drive had not run to completion for a long time. Fixing the disk and running Defrag then solved the issue completely.