Take the 2-minute tour ×

So the new Office 2010 beta is out. Can I start Outlook 2010 without the fancy splash screen? Is there some command line argument I can pass? Some registry flag I can set?

share|improve this question
May I ask why you want to disable the splash screen? If it is because you think disabling it would speed up startup time you might be in for a disappointment... –  Oliver Giesen Oct 27 '10 at 10:38
I work for litmus.com, we do email testing, what happens is the splash screen is a windows form and occasionally our software can mistake it for an email and attempt to take a snapshot of it. We basically get around this by just waiting. –  brendan Nov 5 '10 at 0:15

4 Answers 4

up vote 5 down vote accepted

I don't see one documented anywhere for Outlook 2007 unfortunately, not even on their switches page. Microsoft uses various switches to disable the logo on other products, /q, /nologo, /e, /splash -- none of which seem to work with Outlook. The only registry one I know of for Outlook was for Outlook Express 5, which was NoSplash in the registry as a DWORD. Doesn't seem to work either.

share|improve this answer
I'm accepting this as the answer for now but hopefully this will change when it comes out of beta :-) –  brendan Mar 23 '10 at 15:05

just add /q to the shortcut target and there you are

share|improve this answer
/q is not even listed on the official Outlook 2010 command-line parameters page. Did you even try this before posting and did it work? –  Karan May 2 '13 at 16:47
Info: Does not work in Outlook 2007 –  Ujjwal Singh Jun 24 '13 at 11:05

Start Outlook with the following .vbs script:

Set WshShell=Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") 
WshShell.Run """C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\OUTLOOK.EXE""",7,FALSE

To create the script:

  1. Click Start, type 'Notepad' into the search box and press Enter.
  2. Copy and paste the above code into Notepad.
  3. Click File, Save
  4. Name the file (including quotation marks) "Start Outlook.vbs"
share|improve this answer
Just tested and this works on office 2010. –  Hennes Mar 6 at 20:14

You can use SplashKiller

It's working for Office XP and 2003. I hope it works for Office 2007!

SplashKiller lets you hide those splash screens that appear when an application is loading.

It saves you from having to:

  1. Find a 'no splash screen' option (if one exists) in the application.
  2. Modify your registry to turn off a splash screen.
  3. Hack the application itself to remove the splash screen.
share|improve this answer

Your Answer


