Suddenly Outlook 2003 will not use Word 2003 as email editor

[Alacart]

My Outlook 2003, which is set to use Word 2003 as its email editor, suddenly
reports Word as unavailable to it. Each works well on its own: they just
will not 'talk' to each other. Any ideas, please?

 

[Terry Farrell]

First check in Control Panel, Internet Options, Programs tab that both are
set as the default programs. If those settings are still OK, open one of
them and run the Detect and Repair option from under the Help menu.

 

[Alacart]

Terry - Thank you for this. Word and Outlook are set as the default programs
under Internet Options, I checked, and I have just run Detect and Repair: no
joy. The odd thing is that Outlook seems to reset the checking of Word as
the default editor in Tools, Options, Mail Format: the tick mark disappears
after my creating an email file. Any further thoughts, please? My thanks &
regards.

 

[Alacart]

More on this problem: with Outlook in Safe mode, Actions, New Mail Message
Using, MS Word 2003 produces the warning ' ... you must install the version
of MS Word that matches the installed version of MS Outlook'. But they are
both from Office 2003 and have worked together for years! Any ideas, please?

 

[Terry Farrell]

That's very strange: Outlook 'disconnecting' itself from Word is a symptom
that the versions are different but the question is why? Try renaming
normal.dot and normal.old and email.dot as email.old and see if that
resolves the problem.

Terry

 

[Alacart]

Terry - Thank you, again. I renamed normal.dot as you advised (there was no
..old or email.dot there), but no success. (By the way, Outlook will allow a
Word attachment to an outgoing email: it's just editing with Word that it
refuses.) Anything more, please?