Word 2003 not recognized by Outlook 2003

[jwilckevt]

I used Word XP (10.0) as my email editor for Outlook XP (10.0). I have
recently upgraded to Office 2003 (full installations AND service pack 1 and
latest Junk email filters).

Now when I try to create a new email, a very lengthy error message tells me
that I don't have the right version of Word.

 

[Jocelyn Fiorello [MVP - Outlook]]

Did some part of Office XP get left behind on your machine, perhaps?

--
Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please
reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***


In

 

[jwilckevt]

First, this is three different machines with similar symptoms.

As for "left behind" : there are registry entries for things going back to
Office 8 (Office 97 perhaps) on the oldest of these machines. Also, an empty
folder or two left from 10.

 

[Jocelyn Fiorello [MVP - Outlook]]

Hmm. I'm not finding anything about this problem in the MSKB. It might
help if you post the exact text of the error message you're getting. You
might also want to repost your question (with the error message) in the
microsoft.public.office.misc newsgroup since two different Office products
are involved -- they may be more familiar with this issue over there.

--
Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please
reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***


In

 

[IanG]

I am getting the same problem. The error message is below. What is strange,
is that when I first got this machine only about 6 weeks ago, I was using
Word as the outlook mail editor. Now all of a sudden it stopped working. I
am using version 2003 for both Word and Outlook and have tried the detect and
repair option.

This error message may appear if:
You have Word configured as your e-mail editor and Word is no longer present
on the computer.
The form is corrupt.
Word has faulted.
You are running a version of Word that does not support e-mail editing.
This can also occur if Microsoft Office Outlook was started in Safe mode
(achieved by pressing and holding the CTRL key while starting Outlook).
To work around this problem:
Start Outlook in normal mode.
-Or-
Configure Outlook to use the Outlook editor as the e-mail editor.
On the Outlook Tools menu, click Options.
On the Mail Format tab, set Use Microsoft Office Word to edit e-mail
messages to unchecked and click OK.
-Or-
Reset Word (reboot may be needed or Detect and Repair should be run).
-Or-
Reinstall Word.
-Or-
Upgrade Word.

 

[Gregory I. Hayes]

I am having the exact same problem. Last week Outlook and Word were working
fine ???!!! Has no solution been found for this.

 

[Bob Castleman]

I am having the same problem detailed as follows:

Brand new Dell PC with XP Pro, Office 2003 Pro.

Outlook started giving me this message:

Microsoft Word is set to be you 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.

I go to Tools|Options|Mail Format and I find that Use Microsoft Office Word
2003 to edit e-mail messages is no longer checked. If I check it, then go
back to Outlook, as long as I compose a new email, Word is used as the
editor. But as soon as I *REPLY* to an email, I get the error message again
and the check box is spontaneously unchecked.

I tried doing a detect and repair, but part way through the installer
crashes to the desktop and sends an error report to MS as follows:

The following files will be included in this report
C:\DOCUME~1\BOB~1.SUC\LOCALS~1\Temp\Microsoft Office 2003
Setup(0013)_Task(0001).txt
C:\DOCUME~1\BOB~1.SUC\LOCALS~1\Temp\Microsoft Office 2003 Setup(0013).txt


These files don't exist on the hard drive in that location but do exist in a
different temp folder with the last entry as

=== Logging stopped: 3/15/2005 16:09:35 ===
MSI (c) (28:E8) [16:09:35:629]: Product: Microsoft Office Professional
Edition 2003 -- Configuration failed.

I have tried this logged in as local administrator, to no avail. I also
tried this with a different installation disk (co-worker got new computer at
same time) and it still failed.

I'm thinking about uninstalling and re-installing, but I'm afraid that it
won't uninstall properly and then it will be FUBAR. If I set a system
checkpoint then uninstall, can I at least roll back to the installed state?

Any help would be most appreciated.

Bob
SuccessWare Software

 

[Tophman72]

I am also having the exact same problem.

I am having the same problem detailed as follows:

Brand new Dell PC with XP Pro, Office 2003 Pro.

Outlook started giving me this message:

Microsoft Word is set to be you 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.

I go to Tools|Options|Mail Format and I find that Use Microsoft Office Word
2003 to edit e-mail messages is no longer checked. If I check it, then go
back to Outlook, as long as I compose a new email, Word is used as the
editor. But as soon as I *REPLY* to an email, I get the error message again
and the check box is spontaneously unchecked.

I tried doing a detect and repair, but part way through the installer
crashes to the desktop and sends an error report to MS as follows:

The following files will be included in this report
C:\DOCUME~1\BOB~1.SUC\LOCALS~1\Temp\Microsoft Office 2003
Setup(0013)_Task(0001).txt
C:\DOCUME~1\BOB~1.SUC\LOCALS~1\Temp\Microsoft Office 2003 Setup(0013).txt


These files don't exist on the hard drive in that location but do exist in a
different temp folder with the last entry as

=== Logging stopped: 3/15/2005 16:09:35 ===
MSI (c) (28:E8) [16:09:35:629]: Product: Microsoft Office Professional
Edition 2003 -- Configuration failed.

I have tried this logged in as local administrator, to no avail. I also
tried this with a different installation disk (co-worker got new computer at
same time) and it still failed.

I'm thinking about uninstalling and re-installing, but I'm afraid that it
won't uninstall properly and then it will be FUBAR. If I set a system
checkpoint then uninstall, can I at least roll back to the installed state?

Any help would be most appreciated.

Bob
SuccessWare Software

I am having the exact same problem. Last week Outlook and Word were working
fine ???!!! Has no solution been found for this.

 

[Brian Tillman]

I am also having the exact same problem.

And here's the standard answer:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/microsoft.public.outlook/msg/c17bb52a846760e5?dmode=source&hl=en

 

[Tophman72]

Thank you. It seems after I ran the detect and repair I only had a problem
with one message and none of the others in my inbox. If the problem persists
I will remove and reinstall.

 

[Tech Exec]

I just started experiencing this today. I am suspicious of two applets that I
downloaded from a rather well-known CRM solution provider. Either way, I'm
pretty frustrated by all of this. Why do we accept this type of corruption to
our environment and simply shrug it off as a casual event???

This causes me (and I'm sure many others that get into this predicament) a
significant number of unplanned hours to "hopefully" repair this problem --
at my own risk according to the Google groups answer.

Why is it that the Microsoft "experts" are not able to answer the question
quickly and easily or, better yet, help to prevent this type of problem from
happening in the first place??

I have yet to find a simple means of correcting this corruption (I have NO
desire to uninstall and reinstall Office) and am frankly incredibly
frustrated by the casual approach to this issue by the MS folks.

________________________________________________________________________

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

The Microsoft experts don't have control over the 3rd party utilities you
install and how they interact with word and outlook - so how do you expect
them to prevent problems or have a quick fix answer for you? The only way
they can prevent such problems is to lock your computer down so you can't
install anything without their permission - would you really want that?

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/

 

[Tech Exec]

Hmm...

Wow. You seem defensive. There are cases where locking things down make
sense. There is certainly an argument for letting anyone write any code they
want, but neither of these extremes is necessary. Good quality controls would
be prudent. Certain locking down might be highly advisable. Why should
Microsoft allow a 3rd party application to trounce the registry settings for
a critical productivity application like Office?

Additionally, the obvious truth to this matter is that there IS NO EASY FIX.
It took me many hours to finally get the system back to where it should be.
It could have been many more, but I was able to find one note somewhere (not
here) about re-registering OLE32 (Start > Run > regsvr32.exe
%windir%\system32\ole32.dll) and that finally corrected the problem.

In any event, Office is Microsoft's application. Not the third party's. If
they are going to offer APIs to the Office applications such as Word and
Excel and Outlook, then they should write them in such a way as to control
the effectiveness of the components being written for them by the other
members in the industry.

Finally, Microsoft should not think that they should "lock down your
computer". They can and should lock down their applications. Those with
responsibility for security (technologists in an organization or an
individual in their home) should take care of locking down the computers.

___________________________________________________________________

The Microsoft experts don't have control over the 3rd party utilities you
install and how they interact with word and outlook - so how do you expect
them to prevent problems or have a quick fix answer for you? The only way
they can prevent such problems is to lock your computer down so you can't
install anything without their permission - would you really want that?

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/

I just started experiencing this today. I am suspicious of two applets that
I
downloaded from a rather well-known CRM solution provider. Either way, I'm
pretty frustrated by all of this. Why do we accept this type of corruption
to
our environment and simply shrug it off as a casual event???

This causes me (and I'm sure many others that get into this predicament) a
significant number of unplanned hours to "hopefully" repair this
problem --
at my own risk according to the Google groups answer.

Why is it that the Microsoft "experts" are not able to answer the question
quickly and easily or, better yet, help to prevent this type of problem
from
happening in the first place??

I have yet to find a simple means of correcting this corruption (I have NO
desire to uninstall and reinstall Office) and am frankly incredibly
frustrated by the casual approach to this issue by the MS folks.

________________________________________________________________________

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Microsoft allow a 3rd party application to trounce the registry settings
for
a critical productivity application like Office?

How can MS stop it, short of locking down the system and not allowing any
3rd party apps to run? They don't have the time or resource to QA third
party apps.

Additionally, the obvious truth to this matter is that there IS NO EASY
FIX.

System restore didn't work? Did you contact the 3rd party apps developers
for assistance?


--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/

 

[Tech Exec]

How can MS stop it, short of locking down the system and not allowing any
3rd party apps to run? They don't have the time or resource to QA third
party apps.

At the risk of seeming short, I don't really want to argue this here. The
point I was making was that the Office APIs should be QA'd more effectively
so that the third party applications (presumably written to the API spec) can
not interfere where they should not.

System restore didn't work? Did you contact the 3rd party apps developers
for assistance?

System restore might have worked, but that is not always an easy fix,
either. Admittedly, I did not event attempt it. In my experience, there is
inherent risk in using that functionality, depending on when the system
snapshot was taken and such. In any event, the re-registering of the
OLE32.dll worked. It just was not a well-published corrective action. In
fact, the troubleshooting steps I took may have influenced whether or not
that would have worked as I have seen other posts from folks that said it did
not.

Yes, I did contact the 3rd party suppliers. They were slow to respond and I
could not wait indefinitely for their input. They just got back to me very
recently. So far, they do not know what might have caused the problem short
of the uninstaller possibly removing something it should not have.

 

[Jules]

Dear Tech Exec,

I couldn't agree with you more! And your solution was most helpful.

Dear Diane,

A "System Restore"? Just to get Outlook 2003 to acknowledge Word 2003 as
the default e-mail editor? Are you kidding?

 

[Todd]

I've had the same problem occur unexpectedly and think I found the cure.
-Shut down Outlook, etc.
-Search for Normal.DOT file
-delete it
-Restart outlook 2003

 

[Ken]

I cannot find a "Normal.DOT" File the only file i can find is Normal.FMT is
this the same thing?

 

[DL]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/826839

I cannot find a "Normal.DOT" File the only file i can find is Normal.FMT is
this the same thing?

 

[Hal Hostetler [MVP P/I]]

Make sure you're searching for hidden/system files when you search for it.

Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-Print/Imaging -- WA7BGX
http://www.kvoa.com -- "When News breaks, we fix it!"
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