The ESRI user forums saved the day once again. I couldn’t get ArcCatalog to work all of a sudden – it was taking a very long time to open, and when it finally did open, it wasn’t responsive and kept hanging. If you are experiencing the same problem, try renaming your Normal.gxt and ArcCatalog.gx and let ArcGIS recreate them on its next startup. The problem could be that they have become corrupt. You will find them in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\Application Data\ESRI\ArcCatalog – where User Name is the user name you use to log on to the computer.
I renamed both files, and ArcCatalog started up in no time.
Perfect! Thanks worked for me!
I had this same exact problem and I googled “arccatalog won’t open”. this was the first (and last) search result- this worked! Arc Catalog opened with no problem…. except all my mapped folders and drives were gone- it reverted back to the default settings. And I think some custom toolbars and setting like showing the file size and projection were reset also… but hey, I can’t complain… it worked.
I think the cause was that it was trying to open a shared folder on another computer on my home network. I had ArcCatalog set to open to the last folder browsed when it was closed.
Anyway, thanks for the tip!
Glad to hear it! Yes, one side effect is that you lose any custom settings, as everything reverts back to the default when those templates are rebuilt. I figure it is a tolerable price to pay in order to get ArcCatalog functioning again