Outlook Express not working

[Cliff]

SNIPPETS of POSTINGS ON THE PA BOARD I MADE KNOWING LOTS OF YOU COMPUTER GURUS WERE PLAYING HORSIES THIS WEEKEND. STILL HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO GET THE PROBLEM RESOVLED AND LOOKING FOR HELP WHICH MEANS AN EASY ANSWER...SORRY FOR THE CAPS!


Outlook Express Problem

Problem for the computer gurus. Booted up Saturday morning, double-clicked on Outlook Express and got the following message.

"Outlook Express could not be started. The application was unable to create the Internet Account Manager. Your computer may be out of memory or your disk is full. Contact MicroSoft support for further assistance. (0X8000CDD01)"

Then:

"Outlook Express could not be started because MSOE.DLL could not be initialized. Outlook Express may not be installed correctly."

For the record, I don't think I'm out of memory or my disk is full. Will do some research on that after posting here. Everything was working fine Friday night around 1:00 a.m. I did delete cookies in IE at one point.

MSPaint is not working either. Got a MFC42.DLL error.

Ironically, I have IE, just no OE.

Should mention that I'm using Windows ME. I have tried a partial install of OE through IE setup but it's not letting me do that.

I also tried an update of OE and IE....neither of which worked. Any other options?

1) Would copying the MSOE.DLL from another source work? (Apparently it did not)
2) What damage would completely deleting OE and reinstalling do, or, would that not work either?

More Info:

A possible explanation for the probs?

When I go into my IE folder and look around, I've noticed that the IESETUP file has changed to an Easy CD Creator File. I also recall that at one point on Friday an Easy CD program fired up (on it's own?) and stuck an icon on my toolbar. Couldn't get it to go away until I turned off the puter.

[fred4now]

Cliff, have you checked for a virus?

[Victor]

Cliff,

Do you have Ad-aware 6.0 and or Spybot- Search & Destroy?
I have found them both to be very good.

Spybot- S & D
http://www.safer-networking.org/

Ad-aware 6.0
http://lavasoft.element5.com/support/download/

[C_Martin]

Try System Restore and restore to an early date that was working for you. This has worked for me in the past.

[Cliff]

Fred,
Have not checked for a virus yet. Gut feeling is that that is not the problem. Had to uninstall McAfee (months ago) because it was running in the background and not letting ScanDisk finish. BTW, just ran ScanDisk overnight. It found errors and fixed them but not my specific problem.

Victor,
Yes, I have and use Ad-Aware quite frequently.

C_Martin,
Yes, I tried system restore as far back as it would allow. Every time it says "No changes have been made to your computer".

Any other suggestions?

[qhrick]

Cliff,
I searched MS and didn't see too much specific to OE and ME, but did come across manual uninstall and reinstall instructions for ME/OE:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;278909

Also, you asked "2) What damage would completely deleting OE and reinstalling do, or, would that not work either? "
A total destructive reinstall would almost surely fix the problem. A non-destructive reinstall MAY fix the problem

Lastly, just about everyone hates ME. You may want to consider another option. An OS upgrade. Personally, I would much rather use even Win'98 over ME.
Even an OS upgrade to say XP may not solve your issue tho, it may take a complete destructive install.
There is usually an answer to these types of problems, finding them however is sometimes quite a pain.

-rick

[Cliff]

Guys,

I ended up doing a regedit that got me pretty much back up and running. Thinking that the kiddo's AIM might have had something to do with it.

Thanks for the help!

Cliff