There are some situations where Microsoft Outlook crashes, while trying to start it, carrying out general operations withing MS Outlook, or when you exit it. It could be an extremely frustrating experience because the issue generally occurs randomly and thus you can not easily determine the reason of such crashes. When these crashes take place, the PST file that is the repository of all your critical data in MS Outlook, might get damaged and become inaccessible. This behavior of Microsoft Outlook might cause critical data loss and require Outlook PST Repair to be resolved.

In order to troubleshoot the crashing problems in Microsoft Outlook, there are many diagnostic steps and utilities that you can use to narrow down the problem. The order of the following items is intentional because it logically breaks the main reasons of Outlook crash, however you would possibly end up skipping few steps because they might not be related to your problem.

1-Is it a consistent problem: The very first step to sort out the issue is to find out that if this problem could be reproduced by using same set of steps. As an example, does MS Outlook crash each time when you open a particular meeting or does the Outlook crash on startup?
Recognizing the set of steps, which consistently cause Outlook crash, would make the troubleshooting process much easier because you might be able to sort out the issue without implementing any other troubleshooting step.

2-Update MS Outlook installation with latest cumulative updates: The cumulative updates have every usable fix for Microsoft Outlook. If you are experiencing any known crashing issue with Outlook, the problem could be remedied through the code change included in cumulative update.
Creating a connection among your crashing problems and different fixes for the crashing problems in cumulative update might be difficult. Thus, you are suggested to simply update your MS Outlook installation to latest Outlook and troubleshoot (if required) from baseline.

3-Try symptom-appropriate switch while starting Outlook: MS Outlook includes several command-line switches, which are designed to help you easily clean some application settings. When you understand the issue, you might be able to go for a proper switch to try.
As an example, if MS Outlook crashes while starting, you can try /NoPreview switch. It disables Reading Pane so that the currently selected emails in Inbox are not shown in Reading Pane when the Outlook starts. If emails are corrupted, Outlook might crash when launched as Outlook attempts to render damaged messages in Reading Pane.

4-Try starting Microsoft Outlook in safe mode: If you start the Outlook in safe mode, several customizations that you made to application aren't loaded. Instead, the settings are temporarily substituted by default settings. Also the Exchange Client Extensions and COM add-ins aren't loaded, thus you importantly reduce the amount of DLLs (Dynamic Link Libraries), which interact with Outlook and its files.
After a crash, when you start Outlook, you might see the following message:
"Outlook failed to start correctly last time. Starting Outlook in safe mode
will help you correct or isolate a startup problem in order to successfully start
the program. Some functionality may be disabled in this mode.
Do you want to start Outlook in safe mode?"

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