Thanks. Unfortunately, I already have three of those installed. I finally
went back to IE 5.5, and now everything is fine. However IN CASE ANYONE
ELSE HAS THIS PROBLEM, PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING:
What follows is a short description of the day I spent dealing with
Microsoft issues:
Okay, so some automatic thing pops up on my PC and tells me that I should
really update Internet Explorer 5.5 to IE 6.0. They say that it is their
most secure browser. I am a bit curious as to why, if it is so secure,
there is already a "Critical Cumulative Security Patch" available only four
months after it's release. Anyway, I make the upgrade.
IE 6.0 works great on my machine... except when you close it. Then it spits
out error messages. "explorer has cause an error in this is that... if you
continue to experience problems, try restarting your computer." wow, thanks
for that advice!
So I decide to revert back to IE 5.5. As I didn't have a copy real handy, I
decided to download one. But, of course, Microsoft's page for IE 5.5 says
that you can no longer download it, and that it will no longer be supported.
The kicker... at the bottom of the very same page, there is a link to
download IE 5.5.
Anyway, it turns out i didn't even need to download it, because when I
uninstall 6.0, it magically reverts to 5.5. Terrific, right? WRONG!
Everything's fine until I try to read my e-mail. Outlook no longer
functions. I figure I'll try a quick re-install, but then I remember and/or
discover after some painful and time-consuming attempts that you can't
really uninstall Outlook without uninstalling the rest of Office
(convenient, eh?). Hmmph. So okay... time to reinstall the whole f'in
suite... jeeziz.
Reinstalling the whole damn thing does absolutely nothing to solve my
problem. On the plus side, my custom settings were preserved. Anyway, I
started looking for solutions on the web. Microsoft's site tells me to
uninstall and re-install Outlook Express (though not Outlook), and this will
fix the Outlook problem. What it doesn't tell me is that there is no way to
uninstall Outlook Express. It's not in the add/remove programs list, and,
in fact, the Windows System Components tab tells me that I don't have it
installed (even though I just opened it). Teriffic.
I check the web some more... it tells me of all things, not to reinstall
Office, but reinstall the Office Service Pack (#1, but not #2). So I do
this. Yippity skippity... same old non-functioning Outlook.
Finally, I decide to "over-install" IE 5.5 (I can't uninstall it because
aparenlty it's not there... except it is...) along with the enclosed version
of Outlook Express. The "About IE" tab told me that I already had these
versions installed, but hey, at this point I sure ain't believing much
anymore. So I install IE 5.5 using the version of IE 5.5 that I downloaded
from the page that told me that IE 5.5 could not be downloaded anymore.
I run that, and now I'm using Outlook to write you this message. Thanks,
and have a good night.
mlj
