I have a fresh install of WinXP Pro and have now applied SP1. When starting Outlook Express an error dialog pops up that states that this is a 16-bit mode program and a NTVDM error, sorry I don't have the exact error in front of me so that's all I can say. In the background a MS-DOS prompt has opened up with "16-bit" in the menu title. I click OK and then the MS-DOS windows shuts down and that's it. Seems like WinXP thinks this is now a 16-bit program that's misbehaving, is that right? The OE icons in the start menu and in Quick Launch are broken, they're a standard "flag" icon. I checked the actual msimm.exe file in Program files and found that it looks exactly like a 16-bit icon (like a MS-DOS windows in miniature). The familiar Outlook Express icon is gone. I tried uninstalling OE in Add/remove programs and the reinstalling but without success. What can be the cause of this? How do I get my "32-bit" OE back? Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks! /Marcus

Try this. Take the following info and copy and paste it into a file and name it like fixoutlook.reg: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{44BBA840-CC51-11CF-AAFA-00AA00B6015C}] "IsInstalled"=dword:00000001 Then run that and choose YES when it asks to add to the registry and reboot. Then you should be able to reinstall Outlook Express. I don't recall but I believe it will automagically come up and see you don't have it and ask if you wanna reinstall. Let me know how it turns out!

Thank you for the reply. I won't be able to try this out until monday but I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks. /Marcus

I have solved the problem. What I did was that I took the msimn.exe from another machine with identical OS version and copied it into the OE folder on the target machine. That did the trick, OE now starts normally, however, the icon at the top of the start menu is still not right, but the others are. I can live with that. /Marcus