9th July 2002
Who had trouble with Outlook Express 6.0? Lockergnomie Jim Hatz: "I just thought I would pass this little tidbit along, in case someone else experiences problems with OE6 and wants to reinstall it with minimum hassle. Abby (my PC) got sick after doing a critical update from Microsoft. It actually put it in critical condition, instead. Anyway, after doing a complete restore from backup, I found Outlook Express to be in less than working order. Oh sure, it would open - but all I could see was the menu bar. A reinstall was in order... but how? Thankfully, I came across this registry hack to 'fool' my system into thinking OE was not installed. This works for Windows 2000 / XP (and even ME), but be sure to backup your system before you change anything. While you are logged on as an administrator, open the registry editor. Browse to HKLM \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Active Setup \ Installed Components. The OE branch starts with 44BBA840 and ends with 00AA00B6015C. Double-click the IsInstalled (REG_DWORD) value; change it from 1 to 0, and then click OK. Quit the Registry Editor, and then download and install Internet Explorer 6 from Windows Update. It should note that OE is missing and download / install it without having to download all of IE 6.0.