IE8 suddenly can't open Outlook when clicking on e-mail link

[NurseShark]

I have Windows Vista Home Basic, Comcast cable as my ISP, and Outlook 2007.
Until recently my clicking on e-mail links in IE opened my Outlook and I
could send an e-mail message. Just the last few days, when I click on a
link, I get the message "Cannot start Microsoft Outlook". Outlook works fine
independently and when I run the repair utility, my Comcast account gets the
e-mail from Outlook without difficulty. The only thing that is different is
that I have been using RegCure lately due to ongoing problems with Excel and
Word freezing.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Registry cleaners usually delete more than they should and you'll end up
with more trouble than you started with. Why would you suspect the hangs in
Word and Excel to be caused by the registry? You should troubleshoot these
issues more properly than by having some reg cleaner delete more or less
random registry keys. I'm sure they can assist you further with this in a
Word and Excel newsgroup.

As for the IE links, obviously some much needed registration got deleted as
well. At this point, start with a repair on Office, reset IE and then also
reassign IE as your default browser and Outlook as your default mail handler
in Windows Vista. See if it works correctly again now.