I am having an intermittent problem with the categories in my calendar.  I have named each color and it works most of the time.  But now, it is happening more often.  When I try to categorize a calendar event it takes me to create new category and starts blinking and beeping with my only option to End Task Outlook.  Is this a known problem, and one that can be fixed?  It is driving me nuts that I have to shut down when I am in the middle of a calendar update.

Is this on a single machine or are you using Outlook on multiple machines (potentially including if you access Outlook for remote desktop depending on how it's setup)? Categories are configured locally in Outlook, so if you access your email from multiple machines then the category list configured on one machine won't automatically be configured on the other machine (some settings are server based, colours I think, but not others).

Hi,

Please try starting Outlook using the /cleancategories command to restore categories to the default and then test the issue again. The comamnd deletes any custom category names that you have created, please make sure you have made a backup copy if necessary.

To start Outlook with the command, close Outlook, press Windows key + R to open the Run command, type outlook /cleancategories in the box and press Enter.

Please let me know the result.

Regards,

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support