[Merchantprince]

I have a damaged install of Outlook Express that I am unable to repair. I've tried to reinstall, but am unable to do so. I've tried rolling back Internet Explorer 7 to 6, but am still unable to reinstall OE. I have an IE6 setup file, but it cancels out after reporting that I already have this version.

Is there any way to remove all traces of IE and all versions of OE to start fresh?

[throoper]

Go HERE for the Microsoft How To.
If you give a few details of what's wrong, someone might have an alternate way to get it working.
T.

[Merchantprince]

I did try everything listed there: uninstalled IE 7, ran SFC, and I just finished running install off ie.inf. Still, my OE is bugged.

There were numerous errors with OE from a recent Windows install. Currently, an error window upon launch reads: "The Address Book failed to load. Outlook Express is incorrectly configured, please re-install." I also get errors when trying to create emails and so on.

Essentially the whole install is irrevocably hosed and I'd like to nuke the entire thing and start from scratch. But, of course, MS doesn't allow for that and I can't seem to uninstall IE 6 so that I could do everything from scratch using an IE6 installer.

[throoper]

I see what you mean and you may be right about it being hosed.
It's possible you could have a corrupted address book that's causing the problems.
Locate the WAB file. It's located in C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book
First thing to check is if the WAB file is set for Read Only.
Right click it and select Properties. On the General tab in the Attributes section, make sure the Read Only is unchecked.
If it already is unchecked, try Renaming the WAB to something like WAB.old.
A new address book will be created when you open OE. You'll lose your contacts, but it may get OE functioning again.
If you want to try saving your contacts, if you can get into OE long enough, Export the Address book to a CSV file first. Don't try to Import it back, even if that was the problem. Just use the CSV as a reference for restoring your contact information.
Don't know if that will help, but it's worth a shot.
T.

[Merchantprince]

Yeah, I did try that, as well. But it did not build a new .wab file! How can that be?

[throoper]

How indeed. Looks like you've pretty much covered everything I can think of.
You might want to consider just scrapping OE and moving to Windows Live Mail if you want to stay with an MS mail program. They are eventually going to force everyone to use it, anyway.
Or this would be a good time to try Thunderbird.
If I come up with anything else, I'll let you know.
Sorry I can't be more help.
T.

[throoper]

Okay, one more idea.
Having a momentary brain freeze, I originally posted the address for the WAB.exe. I'm thinking maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. If you have your Windows CD with the I386 folder, you might try deleting the exe in the OE Program files and using msconfig to expand a fresh one into it's place. With the way things are going, it probably won't work, but I'm a hopeless optimist.

[Merchantprince]

throoper, thanks for trying. I do appreciate it. It looks like I finally did repair the problem! I have hunted around for the past three days and finally followed Method II on this Elder Geek page:

http://www.theeldergeek.com/repair_r...e_and_oe_6.htm

Changing my registries didn't help with the OE install, but I ran the installer from a DOS command line and got it to reinstall both IE 6 and OE. It works!

[throoper]

Yeah!!!