msoe dll error

You all have helped me in the past but I have a new problem. Yesterday I went to check my outlook express and came up with this error. I cannot get into my stored mail at all. I'm running Vista oe7 and I'm about to go crazy. I've searched the internet and there are a lot of people with this problem but no answers. Can someone help me? Thanks.

 

Hi, canter,

Here are some ideas...don't know for sure that any will solve your problem with certainty, but they shouldn't hurt anything.

It appears that msoe.dll error could be due to a corrupted msoe.dll, a corrupted store folder, or it could possibly be a corruption of another OE dll on which msoe.dll is dependent. It's hard to say which may be the culprit, so it sounds as if a reinstall of OE may be in order. Before we get to that, though, let's try a couple things.

First, let's get your store folder backed up, just in case. Do a search on C: for *.dbx. Unless you've changed the store location that should lead you to a folder something like c:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\(E5C2ED73-B604-4CE0-AA01-1323B9D13CF9)\Microsoft\Outlook Express. Don't worry too much about the specific name of the folder as long as all it contains are *.dbx files. You should see inbox.dbx, drafts.dbx, etc. I wouldn't expect dbx files to be found in more than one folder on your hard drive unless you have already copied them to another folder for some reason.

Now, select all the dbx files and copy them to another folder or to a flash drive or another hard drive. It's important that you copy every file, in particular the one called folders.dbx, because that one contains the folder structure for your emails. That done, let's go on to other things. I'll tell you how to get these back into OE later if need be.

First, I've read that Vista SP2 addresses the problem, so if you're running SP1 or an original installation of Vista, I suggest that you install SP2 and see after rebooting if OE will now open. If it won't, we'll take more drastic measures. You probably can't go straight to SP2 from an original installation, so install SP1 first if you're not already running that.

OK, if SP2 didn't eliminate the error message, search M'soft for updates/patches for OE for Vista and install those.

If still no joy then delete the *.dbx files from the OE store folder, reboot and try starting OE again. If OE starts without the msoe.dll error, that almost certainly means that the dbx files are corrupted. At that point the problem is not in the OE program files but in the dbx files themselves and you'll have to start over on your quest, looking for ways to repair your corrupted dbx files. I offhand don't know that there is a way, but it's worth looking for anyway.

Going on, let's say that after doing all the previous that the same problem with msoe.dll still exists. At that point there's probably nothing else to do except uninstall OE and reinstall, and between those two steps doing a good clean of the registry to clean out the original install's remnants---very important---as follows:

Go to Control Panel, Add/Remove and select Add/Remove Windows Components. Scroll down and deselect OE and uninstall.

Now run CCleaner>Run Cleaner, followed by CCleaner>Registry>Scan for Issues. After the scan is done then select Fix Issues and make sure you make a registry backup (you should be prompted for that). After that's done (couple seconds), reboot.

Once your computer is back up go to CP>Add/Remove>Windows Components and this time tick the box next to OE so that it will be re-installed. It's possible that you will need your Vista CD, so be ready.

After OE is reinstalled, reboot and upon it rebooting run OE and see if the problem remains. If it does not remain, now all you have to do is either point OE toward the temporary store folder, or move the dbx files from there into the new store folder created by the new OE install. Note that upon starting OE the first time after the install that default folders like inbox.dbx will be created, so when you copy your dbx files over, over-write the default folders. The copying you have to do without OE running--just close OE, copy the dbx files to the store folder, open OE and all your files should be there.

All the above seems pretty drastic, but you may not have any other choice. If you could determine for certain that the msoe.dll file is corrupted, you could simply copy the file over from another Vista computer that runs the same version of OE, but I don't know how to determine whether msoe.dll is corrupted other than comparing size, date and version number, and even if all those check out it could still be corrupted.

Good luck.

 

One other thing, canter. The path to the store folder that I gave in the first email would be more like is found on a XP computer. Since the User folders are different for Vista then obviously the path will be different. Like I said, though, don't worry about the specific path name---it's just wherever the search for *.dbx leads you. However, if you have more than one user account running OE, be sure you copy the correct one.

That leads to another possibility that you can check, too, which might tell you something before embarking on the voyage in my first email. Try switching to another user account and running OE. If you get the same error message, then the problem lies in OE. If you don't get the same error message, the problem is probably in the dbx files themselves (corrupt folders).