Outlook Express problem

[Tearose]

It was working fine yesterday. Today, when I try to send an email, I click on the compose button, and a window starts to open, then I get the error message that OE has experienced a problem and needs to close, do I want to send an error report, etc.
I checked to see if there were any automatic downloads that could have caused the problem. Windows Defender installed an update this morning. It's KB915597, but I can't find where it is in order to remove it, so I turned off Windows Defender and restarted my computer. It didn't help, the problem is still there.
What should I try next? (And please don't limit responses to Windows Defender- it may not have anything to do with the OE problem.) TIA
Jill

 

[linney]

Maybe you can make use of the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. Programs and Windows Updates will have to be installed again. However if the drive is readable an Imaging program or similar programs obtainable from the relevant drive manufacturer may be a possibility, this is more practicable when replacing a drive on the same (or an identical) machine than copying a drive for use on a different machine because of hardware and driver considerations.

Transfer Wizard
thread779-1262006

How to move a Windows installation to different hardware

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249694/en-us?FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

 

[Tearose]

HP is sending a new hard drive, so I will be able to fix that computer. But here is the "Twilight Zone" moment- I put my stuff on another, brand new, computer. I thought this would solve the email problem, but NO! I still can't create mail without the program crashing. Since this is a brand new install of the operating system, that can't be the cause of the problem. Some other program must be interfering with it. But I can't imagine what it could be. I haven't installed the ones that might be suspect, just copied their folders. (If you see a computer being thrown out of a window, you'll know who it is.)

 

[Tearose]

Well, I fixed it on the new computer. After trying several things to no avail, I checked my settings in case any didn't copy automatically, and discovered it didn't know the location of my signature file. I put it in and I can now create mail. I'm afraid to log on to my old computer and see if it had somehow gotten lost there too. At least we've learned something to check if this problem happens again. Thanks for all the suggestions. I will now get back to setting up all my programs on the new computer, so I can be sure they are working before I have to give HP the old hard drive from the other computer.

On the bright side, if the OE problem hadn't happened, I might not have discovered that the hard drive had a problem until it got worse, and I wouldn't have been able to recover my programs. Looking in Event Viewer, that disk error has been happening since at least May.

Jill

 

[linney]

You wont lose much, other than time, if you start again, do a clean install and then check OE, and keep checking it one step at a time, until you throw the computer out of the window, or find the cause.

Not sure what you mean by copying program folders, but that as you probably know, is not the way to install programs.

 

[Tearose]

Most of the folders have the installer in them. Some are Palm programs, and I need to bring the CD from home to install Palm desktop, but as the programs run on the Palm, the folders are just a backup.

Oh, BTW, I did log onto the other computer, and can't get into the email program at all anymore, so I think that really may have been due to a dying HDD, and not just a missing signature file.

Jill