Why does MS Outlook 2007 hang whenever I try to run a rule on the current contents of the inbox?

"In case you have any funky addons, Try running outlook in safe mode by holding down Control when starting.

Whilst I find Outlook to be a brilliant program, it is often slow on large mailboxes, however, I am surprised you are getting that on only 39 items so I think it could be an outside influence!

If these messages are huge, or have many attachments, you may also want to try adjusting any Anti virus program you have that may be scanning them - likewise, if they are huge emails, any sort of interaction with them (such as rules) may be slow trying to process them."