K1VRA

Microsoft Windows XP won't allow you to uninstall Internet Explorer or Outlook Express.  How can you fix them or even reinstall the programs if they become corrupt?

If you don't yet have the very latest version of Internet Explorer or Outlook Express, you can fix many problems by visiting http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ and updating to the latest version.  If you're already up to date, however, the site won't let you reinstall the program.  You need to fool the system into thinking you don't have the latest version.

Please, back up the Registry BEFORE you attempt to edit it.  To do this, after regedit starts, in the 'Registry' menu at the top of the window click 'Export Registry File', give it a name (I usually use today's date, i.e. 20040509), then click the 'Save' box.  Worst case, you can use regedit's 'Import Registry File' function to restore the Registry but, if you're careful, you won't have any problems.

Internet Explorer  Run REGEDIT from the Start menu's Run dialog and navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{89820200-ECBD-11CF-8B85-00AA005B4383}.  In the right-hand pane, double-click on the DWORD value IsInstalled and change it from 1 to 0 (either Decimal or Hexadecimal).  Close REGEDIT and go to the Windows update site again.  Now it should let you "update" IE.

Outlook Express  Run REGEDIT from the Start menu's Run dialog and navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{44BBA840-CC51-11CF-AAFA-00AA00B6015C}.  In the right-hand pane, double-click on the DWORD value IsInstalled and change it from 1 to 0 (either Decimal or Hexadecimal).  Close REGEDIT and go to the Windows update site again.  Now it should let you "update" OE.

If updating to IE 6 or OE 6, or if reinstalling them using this procedure does not cure your problems with IE or OE, then your problem is somewhere else.  Sorry.