Outlook 2002 appears to stops responding when you open a digitally signed or an encrypted e-mail messages (287803)

SYMPTOMS

When you open a digitally signed or signed and encrypted message, Outlook appears to stop responding (hangs). This occurs when you are connected to the Internet or another network through a dial-up connection.

After a delay, the message opens and you can work normally.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs when you open a digitally signed or encrypted message, and Outlook attempts to verify the authenticity of the signing party against their Certificate Authority's Certificate Revocation List (CRL) while you work online. This file may take a brief period of time to download and open, depending upon the speed of your network connection.

RESOLUTION

To help minimize the delay caused by opening digitally signed or signed and encrypted messages when connecting to the Internet or another network through a dial-up connection, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Office XP. For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

307841 OFFXP: How to Obtain the Latest Office XP Service Pack

MORE INFORMATION

The following registry entry controls the behavior of the Cryptdlg.dll file, which governs the verification of the Certificate Revocation:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\Security

Value: "UseCRLChasing"

This DWORD value can be modified with the following values to determine the behavior of the Outlook client software:

0 = While online, check for Certificate Revocation
1 = Check for Certificate Revocation, even when offline (this is the default value)
2 = Never check for Certificate Revocation
3 = Only check for Certificate Revocation within the local cache.

NOTE: The DWORD value of 3 is currently not supported in Microsoft Windows.