IT Queries: Computer problems answered

Can you please help me with the safest way to revert the Outlook Express spelling checker to English as it can’t be changed from French!

This is a problem that came along with Microsoft Office 2007 which changed the various spell checking and document proofing functions in Windows, Outlook Express itself doesn’t come with a spell checker.

As you can see from other sites’ posts – such as Jay Lee’s Chron site and Joe Duck’s Travel Blog this has caused a lot of angst for many computer users.

You can easily fix this by downloading the free Spell Checker For OE program we describe in our Outlook Express Doesn’t Have A Spell Checker post.

There are a number of registry fixes as well that can resolve this or you can reinstall the older versions of Office proofing tools but overall the simplest solution is to add the free program.

I can’t check spelling when writing an email in Outlook Express

Outlook Express, the free email program that came with Windows 98 through to XP, doesn’t come with a spell checker built in. Instead it uses the Microsoft Office spell checker.

If you don’t have Microsoft Office installed then you can use the free Spell Checker for OE to add this function to your computer.

This problem can also happen when Office 2007 is installed on a Windows XP system as the newer program disables older spellcheckers.

Yesterday afternoon, I went back to my Outlook Express inbox to check an email from a few days ago and everything prior to that morning, right back to 22 July 2010 (1 years worth) had vanished. Other folders, including deleted, were still there.

Do you think they are still on the computer somewhere, and if so, how do I retrieve them.

The emails are almost certainly there, Outlook Express though is notorious for damaged folders losing email.

Recovering them is a fiddly task, first find the Outlook Express Data store as we describe in Fixing a Damaged Outlook Express Inbox.

Close Outlook Express and copy the folder that contains all the Outlook Express files to somewhere in My Documents.

Then re-open Outlook Express and import the mailboxes as we describe in the Recovering old outlook express messages and address book post. Make sure you have ticked the box reading “do not import duplicates” or you’ll double up the other folders.

I have a Packard Bell PC. Operating system is Window XP. I can only access Outlook Express once after start up. Nothing happens when I want to access it again. I have to reboot the system to be able to access O/E again, then I again can only access it once. Can you help please?

Outlook Express is a fragile program and there’s a number of things that can upset it. The first thing to do is to clean up your mailbox by deleting unwanted emails and emptying the trash bin as OE doesn’t like the data folders getting too big.

If that isn’t resolving the problem, check our post on Outlook Express Keeps Disappearing.

Should it still misbehave, you can reset Internet Explorer’s settings or checking for damaged Outlook Express files as we describe in Missing Links in Outlook Express.

The final solution could be a damaged Outlook Express data file and we have the instructions for that at Outlook Express data files damaged.

Outlook Express is a fairly buggy program and is very much showing its age, so you might want to consider alternative options such as Gmail, Windows Live or Yahoo! Mail.

I get my emails in Outlook Express on my PC but I’d like to be able to get them on my laptop via the the web when I’m away from home.  How do I do it?

The easiest way of collecting emails while you’re on the road is to use your Internet provider’s or hosting company’s webmail service which allows you to log on to their server through a web browser. Once into the system you can handle your email as you would in Outlook Express.

A better way is to set up one of the webmail services from Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo!. All of these services can be used to collect mail from your account and are usually more flexible than the webmail services provided by the service providers.

Before leaving, remember to import your address books into the web service so you have a list of email addresses for your family and friends.

Hi, I need to reinstall my Win XP OS to get rid of all the junk I’ve accumulated;  I’ve burnt a DVD with my documents on it, but will my emails be there as well ?  if not, how do I preserve them ?

Your emails probably won’t be in My Documents unless you’ve specifically told your system to save them there.

Finding your emails on a Windows system is particularly irritating as the different programs dump them into different folders. In Outlook Express and Windows Mail the address books are also saved in a completely different location.

The best thing is to back up your entire profile, this sits in the Documents and Settings folder on your C: drive and the profile will be either your log in name or something close to it.

By backing up this entire folder, you’ll save your My Documents folder, desktop, web browser bookmarks, address books and email. Just take care that your email folder isn’t so big it won’t fit on a single DVD.

I have a new computer running Windows 7 and I can’t figure out how to copy the addresses in Outlook Express on my old computer to the new system.

You’ll have to export the old address book into a Comma Separated Value file (.csv) on the old computer, copy the CSV file across to the new computer and then import it into Windows Live Mail. It isn’t complex, but it is a bit fiddly.

First, open Outlook Express on your old Windows XP, ME, 98 or 95 computer and choose Addresses on the tool bar as show below;

Once you are in the Windows Address Book choose File then Export and Other Address Book.

In the Address Book Export Tool, select Text File (Comma Separated Values) and click Export;

The program will then ask you where you want to save the CSV file, choose an external drive which you can plug into the new Windows 7 computer or, if both the computers are networked, a location where the Windows 7 machine can find the exported file.

Once you’ve saved the file go to the Windows 7 system and plug in the external drive if you’ve used that to save the CSV file.

In the Windows Live Mail screen, select the contacts button and show menu, then choose import and Comma Separated Values. The program will ask where the CSV file is, and you’ll need to tell it where the file has been saved.

Click continueand the import process will start. During the process, the program might ask you about field mapping, this is where the computer isn’t sure which part of the file belongs where, so you may have to tell the system which part is the email address, which part the surname, etc.

Once you’ve completed, you should find all your addresses have come across. Keep in mind if you have multiple address books or groups within the address book, you’ll have to recreate these.

My Outlook Express dissapeared after I shut down with it still open, I found a 2nd copy in control panel[that computer tech pmade when OE froze a year ago] and dragged and am using it.

BUT my files dont recognise it, I can ATT; pics to emails but I cant send a picture to be emailled, mess; Cannot start Microsoft Outlook ,requires M O Express 4.01 or greater. You can install OE by runnig IE5 setup .exe from the IES folder located on your cd or through the windows website

It sounds like your Outlook Express 5 is damaged and your computer is actually using Outlook, which is a totally different program.

To fix this, you’ll need to repair the Internet Explorer 5 installation by following our instructions on Removing Software.

When you select Internet Explorer, it will give you the choice to remove, repair or modify. Choose modify and make sure the Outlook Express is ticked in the list of installed options. If it is, cancel the modify, repeat the process and choose repair then follow the wizard through the repair process.

You should keep in mind Outlook Express and Internet Explorer 5 are extremely out of date programs and you should upgrade to the newest version your system can support. You may also want to consider buying a new computer as these problems are probably related to the age of the system.

Each time I restart my pc – old emails come back into my inbox in OE. How do I stop this?

A long standing quirk in Outlook Express and its Vista equivalent, Windows Mail, is when it thinks it hasn’t downloaded a message properly it will start downloading everything again. 

For instance, if there are a hundred messages waiting for you at your Internet provider and Outlook Express decided message 83 wasn’t received, even though it was along with the other message, it will assume all 100 messages need to be downloaded again. 

And again, and again, and again.

The only way around this is to flush the mailbox so the offending message stops messing with OE.

You can do this two ways; the first is to log onto your ISP’s webmail page and delete all the pending messages in your inbox while the other is to install Mozilla Thunderbird and download the messages there.

Of the two, the webmail option is the best as you can be sure the mailbox is cleared out.

When I send an email with an attached photograph. It doesn’t appear to leave my Outbox but arrives at its destination as many as 19 times. I have contacted our service provider, Harbour IT who took me through a series of tasks but the problem still exists. Can you help?

The likely suspect is the time your email program waits before giving up. You need to change your timeout settings.

In Outlook Express, click Tools, Accounts, highlight your email account and click the properties button.

In the account properties window, click the Advanced tab and under Server Timeouts move the slider to the extreme right, which will show the timeout as being five minutes.

Click okay, restart the computer and see if that clears the problem.