New messages and Options greyed out

[derdle]

I installed Office 2003 Pro on a new PC on Saturday. All went fine,
Outlook working perfectly. Last night I checked my emails (POP3
account) and replied to a mail. 20 minutes later I went to write
another email and realised the New button on the toolbar was now greyed
out. Going to File then New the only items in the menu that aren't
greyed out are 'navigation pane shortcut' and 'internet fax'.
Going into Tools the Options link is also greyed out. When I've got an
email open the Reply, Forward, etc options are all greyed out.

Tried restarting Outlook, rebooting PC, repairing the installation,
reinstalling Office, running a virus scan, doing a system restore...
nothing fixes it. When you first open Outlook the New button isn't
greyed out and if you're REALLY quick you can hit it and get a new
email open, but it greys itself out so quickly that's hard to
achieve.

Anyone come across anything like this before? I don't know what else to
try and i'm baffled as to what caused it to break last night as I did
absolutely nothing on the computer between replying to the email and
going to compose a new one.

Thanks,
Jen

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Did you activate your copy of Office already? Help-> Activate product...

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-FREE tool; QuickMail. Create new Outlook items anywhere from within Windows
-Properly back-up and restore your Outlook data

-----
I installed Office 2003 Pro on a new PC on Saturday. All went fine,
Outlook working perfectly. Last night I checked my emails (POP3
account) and replied to a mail. 20 minutes later I went to write
another email and realised the New button on the toolbar was now greyed
out. Going to File then New the only items in the menu that aren't
greyed out are 'navigation pane shortcut' and 'internet fax'.
Going into Tools the Options link is also greyed out. When I've got an
email open the Reply, Forward, etc options are all greyed out.

Tried restarting Outlook, rebooting PC, repairing the installation,
reinstalling Office, running a virus scan, doing a system restore...
nothing fixes it. When you first open Outlook the New button isn't
greyed out and if you're REALLY quick you can hit it and get a new
email open, but it greys itself out so quickly that's hard to
achieve.

Anyone come across anything like this before? I don't know what else to
try and i'm baffled as to what caused it to break last night as I did
absolutely nothing on the computer between replying to the email and
going to compose a new one.

Thanks,
Jen

 

[derdle]

Hi Roady,

I thought I'd done it when I installed the product but obviously not.
However, now when I click on Help --> Activate Product nothing happens
at all. I don't get the box saying it's activated, nor do I get the
activation box up, or any kind of error message. I've tried going into
it via Word rather than Outlook but that's made no difference either.
Is there any other way I can activate it, given I can't get into the
system to find the phone number??

Jen

 

[derdle]

I should mention that I've done the instructions outlined in KB 823527
("Activation Wizard does not start in Office 2003") as well and that's
not fixed it either!

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Are the other Office applications fully functional? If they are it is not
the activation acting strange.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-FREE tool; QuickMail. Create new Outlook items anywhere from within Windows
-Properly back-up and restore your Outlook data

 

[derdle]

Hi Roady,
No... for example in Word I can't type into existing documents or save
anything. I'm pretty sure it is activation that's the problem.