Uninstall Thunderbird (Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs).So here's the solution which worked for me (and I hope this tip helps someone else): It left guff behind that it shouldn't have, and that stuff was messing things up when I tried to install, or rather reinstall, it. Unfortunately, the uninstallation didn't work very well (so a smack and a spanking for whoever was responsible for that!). I'd previously tried out Thunderbird, some months ago, but decided at that time that I didn't get on with it, so I uninstalled it. No amount of killing the process, or uninstalling and reinstalling Thunderbird, would fix it: it was there, but invisible and inaccessible.įinally, after too much time spent trying to troubleshoot this, I realised what the problem was.

Frustratingly, in the Task Manager I could see that Thunderbird.exe was visible on the Processes tab, but not the Applications tab. Nothing happened at all when I installed and tried to open Thunderbird. If, when you attempt to launch or open Thunderbird after installation, either nothing seems to happen at all or else the Import box (offering to import your settings from Outlook etc) pops up but then vanishes when you select an option, and Thunderbird still won't come up - well you're not alone. Are you having problems trying out the free open source Mozilla Thunderbird email software on Windows XP - in that you can't open Thunderbird at all?

Mozilla thunderbird not opening