Outlook Express blown away by "upgrade"

[Brian O]

I recently allowed an "upgrade" of my Office XP Standard that MS was hounding
me to do for a long time. I new better, but I proceeded to end the constant
bother.

Now, my Outlook Express is corrupted. I can receive email, but I can not
reply or send new messages.

When I click Create Mail or Reply the dialog box says "There was an error
opening this message. An error has occurred."

If I try to open the Address Book, the message is "Unable to open the
Address Book. The Address Book may not be installed properly." Yes, well it
was just fine before the "upgrade" (yup, a little more than annoyed, sorry if
my sense of humor is missing).

I read a few other posts in here about exporting the Address Book and my
messages, but neither of those options will work either; I did try.

I am absolutely certain that if I reinstall, I will lose everything, and
that is not an option. There are contracts and receipts and all kinds of
other things in there that are not loseable; I can not even contemplate a
minor risk of losing them.

Are there any solutions out of this mess?

 

[DL]

Well if you cannot afford to lose anything why are you using a system with
no backups, as as sure as eggs is eggs you will lose data

PS This is an Outlook group Outlook Express is a completely different
application, supported within the internet explorer groups

 

[Peter Foldes]

Sent to the Outlook Express newsgroup via crosspost

 

[Bruce Hagen]

The first thing to do is to remove the update, (I assume that is what you
mean by upgrade), in the Control Panel | Add/Remove Programs.

Reboot and see if things are back to normal. If they are, download the
update /manually/ with your anti-virus turned off to insure a clean install.

If removing the update and rebooting did not fix the problem, then see the
following.

Courtesy of Michael Santovec:
http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm

All of those have the same cause. Something is screwed up with your address
book.

It could be any of several specific problems, which include:
- corrupted WAB file
- corrupted or mismatched DLL files for the address book
- having OE set to use the Outlook98/2000+ contacts instead of the WAB
file and there is something wrong at the Outlook end

For specifics, take a look at:

Err Msg: The Message Could Not Be Sent. Some recipients not valid
(Outlook Express: There was an error opening this message)
(The Address Book failed to load. OE is incorrectly configured)
(Corrupted or mismatched WAB32.DLL file)
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=239135
OLEXP: Error Message: Address Book Failed to Load
(There was an error opening this message)
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=269777
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310873
OLEXP: MSIMN Caused an Invalid Page Fault in Module Wab32.dll
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=247706
Err Msg: Address Book Failed To Load, Outlook Express Is...
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=191946
Err Msg: Unable to Open Address Book, a Component Is Missing
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=192321

The Windows Address Book (WAB)
http://www.insideoe.com/files/wab.htm

To share Contacts between Outlook and Outlook Express
http://www.slipstick.com/contacts/oeshare.htm
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Sent to the Outlook Express newsgroup via crosspost

 

[PA Bear]

Do you have this Registry key?...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WAB\WAB4

If not, STOP; If so, is there a DWORD named UseOutlook (NB: no space) and is
its value set to 1 (one)?

If not, STOP; If so, Address Book is configured to share contacts with
Outlook, even if you don't use it (can happen with the install of Office).
Change the value to 0 (zero), Address Book should be available to you and
all should be well. (If that DWORD is not present, don't create it, and
don't alter any other DWORD values.)

Note that any changes (additions, deletions, edits) made while sharing was
enabled will not be available (displayed) in Address Book when sharing is
disabled.

=> Also make certain that OE is your default for E-mail in Set Program
Access and Defaults.

NB: Expect this to happen in the future after installing any update for MS
Outlook.

 

[Laughingstar~*]

Thanks, Bruce...I saved this in a Word file. ;-))