I have installed Office 97 on a Windows XP machine. All programs work OK except Outlook 97. It does not start. The error message is "outlook.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close".

I have tried to open Outlook 97 with the administrator account and get the same problem. I also have another windows XP machine and get the same fault.

I don't want to upgrade as the rest of the office use 97. Does anyone know how to get outlook working on XP?

Thanks in advance.

Office 97 should have no problems running on XP.

Perform a Repair installation from the original install CD.

Hi Ross.

I have tried a re-install from the original CD with no success. I have also completely removed and re-installed using the administrators account with no joy.

Any other suggestions?

Make sure that your Office 97 installation is up-to-date by installing Office 97 Service Release 1 (SR-1) first and then applying Office 97 Service Release 2b (SR-2b).

Also, does Outlook always crash from a completely clean installation or once you have set it up with your email accounts/message store? I only ask becuase I've seen Outlook fall over before when it attempts to access a corrupt .PST message file. If this may be the case, you can run scanpst.exe (search for it under 'Program files') and allow it to perform a quick scan on your .PST file; any problems will be corrected.

Thanks Ross.

I tried the scanpst.exe program and that did not work. However, I had copied my previous "outlook.pst" file over to the new PC. I removed this file and re-installed outlook. Outlook worked OK. I then imported the required items from my original outlook.pst file. Everything works OK.

Thanks again for all your help.