Outlook 2003 and Word 2003 problem

[lc]

Weird problem. "All of the sudden", when I hit reply or forward, I get
the following error:

"Microsoft Word is set to be your e-mail editor. However, Word is
unavailable, not installed, or is not the same version as Outlook. The
Outlook e-mail editor will be used instead. An OLE registration error
occurred. The program is not correctly installed. Run Setup again for
the program."

Now, the "funny" thing is that with New message, Word opens normally. I
ran Detect and Repair a few times. I even uninstalled and reinstalled
entire office (Enterprise) and applied all the service packs and hot
fixes - still nothing.

Would anyone care to speculate what might be the problem here?

TIA

lc

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

There appear to be a whole host of causes for this error message. Most have
no solution. Here are a few that do:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q284900
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q319796
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q196871
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q223934

In the most refractory of cases, you can try this at your own risk:
Get the Windows Installer Cleanup utility from Microsoft.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301

Then uninstall Word and run the installer cleanup utility to remove anything
that has Word in it and\or remove information from any previous version of
Microsoft Office. Reboot. Then re-install Word. Reboot. Then run Office
Detect and Repair. Reboot.

To use the Windows installer cleanup utility to remove Word:
1. Click Start, point to All Programs, and then click Windows Install Clean
Up.
2. In the list of installed programs, click Word or the earlier Office
installation, and then click Remove.
3. When the removal process is completed, click OK, and then click Exit.

 

[lc]

Wow. Thanks a million. Let me try a few things and will get back to you
on the result.

Thanks a lot.

lc

 

[lc]

No dice. I tried everything that was suggested and that was applicable
(i.e. version mismatch not applicable). Went even as far as to delete
Office folder and I let Detect & Repair kill all of my settings - and
still nothing.

Isn't really odd? Outlook is able to start Word with New message but not
Reply or Forward.

Would you have any other idea?

TIA.

lc

 

[lc]

I just noticed something else: When I'd hit Reply, I'd get that error
message and Outlook with disable Word as my email editor but only for
HTML messages. The checkbox on "Use Word for Rich Text..." is still on.

Would this shed any light on the problem?

TIA

lc

 

[lc]

More details... From Word or Excel, Send To Mail Recipient as Attachment
also doesn't work. It starts the message form but the attachment is not
there; "Send" (anyway) causes "The operation failed due to network or
other communications problems. Check your connections and try again"
error. However, doing the same from Outlook (manually attaching these
documents) works just fine (all in the same Outlook session).

Really weird. Seems like something's missing from MAPI extensions for
Office (if there is such a thing).

Anyone?

TIA

lc

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

I warned you, this is a problem that is so pervasive and ongoing that you
most likely would find no solution. However, when you said you "tried
everything," what did you mean?
Simply removing folders does nothing. It would only make matters worse. This
is a version conflict issue. Are you telling me that on this hard drive you
have never had anything but Office 2003 installed?

 

[lc]

I love talking with myself but this time I'm not getting anywhere
with the other me

Any help would be highly appreciated.

TIA.

lc

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Then read the replies to your post.

 

[lc]

Then read the replies to your post.

Sorry, didn't see your post on time.

 

[lc]

I warned you, this is a problem that is so pervasive and ongoing that you
most likely would find no solution. However, when you said you "tried
everything," what did you mean?

I meant everything you suggested and a "bit" more. That includes that
Cleanup utility you mentioned. I've done the whole thing twice. The
second time I wiped the directories clean.

Simply removing folders does nothing. It would only make matters worse. This
is a version conflict issue. Are you telling me that on this hard drive you
have never had anything but Office 2003 installed?

I can't quite recall; I probably had Office XP long time ago but I've
been running 2003 for over a year for sure. Last thing I did (before I
started seeing this problem), come to think of it, is that I uninstalled
SQL 2005 beta and Framework 2 (also beta). If you believe this is a
version conflict, I would have to assume that SQL 2005 messed up one of
DLLs in System32 (since I wiped Office directories clean), which now
wouldn't be overwritten as it's "newer" than whatever comes with Office
2003. The trick would be to find which one. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

lc

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

No. I have no more recent information than what I've posted. As I said,
there seem to be more undocumented (and unsolved) causes for this problem
than solvable ones. I agree with you that your most recent software
installation is the likely culprit since Office 2003 worked fine until then,
but it's anyone's guess as to what setting or file actually caused the
problem.

 

[lc]

Cool. I get it. I figure I'll just compare what I have with what's on a
"good" computer and hopefully, I should be able to find which DLL(s)
is/are the perpetrator(s). I already started writing a small utility to
compare versions of files in two directories. I'll post it here once
it's done. I hope it's permitted to post attachments

Thanks for your time.

lc

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Good. If you're lucky, you can come up with another solution to add to the
list.

 

[lc]

HA! and HA!!! again!!!

It seems that OLE32.DLL was no longer registered. Therefore:

regsvr32 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\OLE32.DLL

I sure hope this will help some other poor soul having this kind of problem.

lc

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Are you saying registering it fixed your problem?
Do you know why it was not registered?

 

[lc]

Are you saying registering it fixed your problem?
Do you know why it was not registered?

Yes, it entirely fixed the problem but as for why did it get
unregistered, I really can't tell with certainty. I know that I
uninstalled SQL 2005 and Framework 2 but I seriously doubt those could
have anything to do with this issue. The only other possibility would be
completely unrelated (prior) problems with Navision; something was (so)
bad with importing its license file that I couldn't start the client any
longer and I had to kill it and reinstall it. I just think that
reinstall would've fixed anything that it might've messed up
uninstalling. I really can't tell.

All I know that it occurred to me that all applications (Outlook, Word,
Excel) worked flawlessly on their own but when they were to "talk" to
each other (tested only Word to Outlook and Excel to Outlook) I would've
seen problems. I guessed it must be OLE and ... ta-daaa. I only assume
that had I tried to embed Excel sheet in Word document I would've seen
the same problems again - just thought never crossed my mind that this
should be tested.

Anyway, I sure hope this experience of mind would/will help someone else.

Thanks for your time Russ.

lc

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP Outlook]]

Fascinating. Another one to add to the list.
Thanks.

 

[Dvally]

Not sure if you ever resolved the problem, but here are a couple things
to try to fix this:
----------------
CAUSE
This behavior occurs if the Ole32.dll file that is located in the
%Windir%\System32 folder is not registered correctly in the registry.

RESOLUTION
To resolve this problem, register the Ole32.dll file. To do this,
follow these steps: 1. Click Start, click Run, type the following
command in the Open box, and then click OK:
Regsvr32.exe %Windir%\System32\Ole32.dll
2. In the RegSvr32 dialog box, click OK.
-----------------

1. Interface not Registered in Outlook 2003.
2. Problem with current editor (word 2003)
3. "Microsoft Word is set to be your e-mail editor. However, Word is
unavailable, not installed, or is not the same version as Outlook. The
Outlook e-mail editor will be used instead. An OLE registration error
occurred. The program is not correctly installed. Run setup again for
the program."
SOLUTION:
Click Start, click Run,
type Msiexec.exe /fm GUID For Office 2003 Product
, and then press ENTER.

EXAMPLE cmd for MS Office Pro 2003

msiexec.exe /fm {90110409-6000-11D3-8CFE-0150048383C9}

-----------------

 

[BenTarnowski]

I had the same error occur after installing SP2 for Microsoft Office
2003. I ran a repair on office but it didn't work. It turned out to
be a problem with the registration of the OLE32.dll file in the
registry. I ran the command "regsvr32 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\OLE32.DLL"
(w/o the quote mark) and restarted Outlook and it worked just fine. If
you haven't yet installed SP2, I guess you should; just keep this
solution bookmarked in case you receive the same error after updating
the software.

Thank you to those who provided the solution to this problem. I
reiterated & paraphrased your postings so that a user, performing a
Google Groups search for and identical problem, would find my post and
wouldn't have to search any further for the solution. Credit to whom
credit is due!

MaxRoberts22