Reinstalling Outlook Express 6 on Windows XP
For reasons beyond my comprehension Microsoft decided not to allow you to reinstall OE6 in windows XP. After a day of searching the web and talking to some people on various message boards, I was left believing this was impossible to do. But after running across some info while searching for ASPI info in windows XP of all things, I was struck from above with an idea. So without further ado, here is the method that I used and it works!!!
Step 1) Follow the directions at http://old.bink.nu/ie6/ to download a full version of IE6 from Microsoft. I didn’t try downloading just the install for Win 2000 and XP so I recommend downloading all 4 of the listed checked versions of windows. The download for me was about 50 Meg and didn’t take that long over cable.
Step 2) After downloading has finished create a folder “c:\oe6”.
Step 3) Open the “c:\ie6 full” folder. You should have a bunch of .cab files in there along with a few other files.
Step 4) Open the MAILNEWS.CAB file and extract the contents of it to the “c:\oe6” folder that we created earlier. You should be able to double click the cab file because XP has the ability to read .cab files using its explorer. Just select all the files and right click on one of them. Choose the Extract option and point it to the “c:\oe6”.
Step 5) Repeat step 4 for files OEEXCEP.CAB and WAB.CAB.
Step 6) Open up the “c:\oe6” folder.
Step 7) Right click on the “oeexcep.inf” file and choose the install option. Windows will now copy a bunch of new files into the correct locations.
Step 8) Reboot. Just to be sure.
Step 9) Enjoy your reinstalled Outlook Express 6. (You may have to resetup your accounts.)
