G'Day Peter,

You don't say what version of Windows, but 128MB sounds a bit light.

Your CPU speed is also a bit slow.

256MB will make a difference, but don't expect a miracle.

It would probably be better to wait until you can see your way to upgrading
to perhaps a 2GHz/512MB PC - perhaps on eBay.

The machine I'm running currently is a P3 at 617MHz, 384Mb and XP runs
Outlook without any problems. Your issue may be several things. Is the time
taken different to what it used to be, or has it always been 5-10 minutes?
If it has suddenly changed, or been a gradual increase in time it can point
to some possible causes. I just opened it on this PC- it took 10 seconds
(and I have Outlook Express and it is downloading newsgroup messages, 2
Internet Explorer  sessions, 1 Firefox with 3 windows sessions, 3 File
Explorer windows, Spyware Blaster open, AVG, Firewall and some more stuff
all running).

General Questions: Do you defragment? Hard disk size/free space? How much is
in your inbox / what is the file size (have you tried compressing the file?)
Have you got up to date virus and spyware programs (which ones?) and run
scans? XP works better with 256Mb or more- but *if* the time taken has
increased while you have left the memory the same then that isn't the cause
of any change is it?

Close Outlook. Find and rename outcmd.dat to .old.  (If using Windows 2000
or XP, you will need to enable searching hidden and system folders.)

Once you have done so, reopen Outlook and it should open fine.  You will
need to rebuild any custom toolbars or customizations as the file outcmd.dat
controls how the toolbars display.  When it becomes corrupted, it will cause
Outlook to hang because it cannot create the toolbars that you expect.