Remember, this is the web version of Outlook, not what's bundled with Office, so there's no Tool menu to choose from, and compose options are limited to a tool bar in the new message window, for selecting font style, color, etc. I've tried changing those, but to no effect. There are no stationary choices. There is a global options page that can be opened, though, and using that I was also unable to create a signature (same trouble - just the red x in the text field). All IE settings are at default levels, and I've also tried minimizing all the security options. Other than the versions of XP Home SP2, I'm not sure what's different about these two laptops. The 600m (the one with the problem) has the factory-installed version of the operating system, but I used the install disk that came with the 600m to do a clean install of XP Home SP2 on the Inspiron 4000. The only way I can tell they're different is by the splash screens at logon and logoff.

Maybe you've already seen this... maybe not... because I just stumbled across it in a google search.

http://forums.whatpc.co.uk/thread.jsp?forum=12&thread=53592&message=334021

Last guy to reply there says something to the effect that it might be fixable by changing some setting, and yet I couldn't quite understand what exactly. Maybe you'd know since you use the Outlook Web Access (I sure don't).

Unfortunately, nobody has responded back to tell if that fixed theirs.

 

Wow, nice google search. That's my problem exactly, and I also use Firefox as my primary browser, and it doesn't exhibit the same problem as IE. Unfortunately, the guy that offers a solution is confusing Outlook and Web Outlook, and those options he's talking about just aren't there for Web Outlook users. One might ask, "Why not just use Firefox?" The problem with that is Firefox doesn't show all the Outlook features that IE does, and apparently Web Outlook is an integral part of IE that we don't normally see. If you see Web Outlook on IE, versus any other browser like Firefox or Opera, you'd barely know you're looking at the same program. At least I know I'm not the only one with this problem, though. One might also ask, "Why not just use Outlook (the one bundled with Office, rather than Web bOutlook)?" I'm restricted from doing that because I'm involved in a health care situation, and there may be confidentiality issues, so my university won't allow anything other than Web Outlook access to their email system. Same reason I can't use Eudora Pro anymore.

BTW, I don't think Firefox has anything to do with this problem, as it's on my Inspiron 4000, too, and Web Outlook works fine with IE on that system. I've also got the latest update of Java on both systems, so that's not likely related, either. Thanks for your efforts.

Message Edited by dcluvshc on 05-24-2005 07:21 AM

Here's the fix, at least on my system. This unregisters and then registers the components of Web Outlook that were causing the problem.

Type these lines below in a Command prompt console (click Start > Run and type CMD):

regsvr32 /u "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Triedit\dhtmled.ocx"
regsvr32 /u "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Triedit\triedit.dll"
regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Triedit\dhtmled.ocx"
regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Triedit\triedit.dll"

This seems to be a fairly common problem on systems running XP SP2, so I hope it works for everyone else.

Dean