WinMail stopped working after windows installed updates

I have just reloaded Windows 7 and set up WinMail, after Windows updated 100+ files WinMail now doesnot work, does anybody have any ideas

Hello Paul and welcome to Seven Forums.

I'm guessing you're talking about Windows Live Mail. It's possible that when you installed WLM something corrupted the installation. It's also possible that one or more of the 100+ Windows Updates failed to install correctly and had an effect on WLM. If you had the updates install automatically it will be difficult if not impossible to figure out which one(s) might be the problem. You may not like the suggestion I'm about to offer.

First, you could uninstall Windows Live Mail, reboot, then try reinstalling to see if the problem is corrected.

How to remove and reinstall Windows Live Essentials

If that doesn't correct the problem I'd uninstall all of the Windows Updates.

Remove an update

Then I'd install maybe 10 at a time, keeping track of which 10 updates you're installing by making note of the KB number. Use the computer for a while to see if there are any problems. If all works as it should, install 10 more updates. If a problem occurs, you'll know exactly which 10 updates might be causing the issue. Uninstall those 10 updates and reinstall just one at a time. Run the computer for a while, if no problems, install next update. Either all 10 will install correctly or you'll find the problem update(s).

If still no joy you could try running the System Update Readiness Tool.

What is the System Update Readiness Tool?.

No it is WinMail, it was the replacement for outlook express in vista. It can be loaded into win7, I have it on my laptop as well and working fine as it did on the pc when first loaded and reloaded.

Sorry, my bad.

You could still try uninstalling/reinstalling WinMail just in case it was corrupted somehow during the original installation. If the problem started after all those Windows Updates, I'd go ahead and remove the updates and try WinMail. If it works the chances are pretty good one or more of the updates is at fault. Then I'd reinstall the updates 10 at a time. I'd also change how Windows installs/notifies you of available updates. I'd use either "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them" or "Never check for updates (not recommended)".

Change how Windows installs or notifies you about updates

PaulM94 said:

I have just reloaded Windows 7 and set up WinMail, after Windows updated 100+ files WinMail now doesnot work, does anybody have any ideas

Click to expand...

IIRC, Windows Mail on 7 was borked by SP1. However I think the critical dll files were updated in the tutorial shortly thereafter. Are you sure you are using the current dll (msoe.dll) from the tutorial which should be compatible with Win7 SP1?

Yes I used the same file when I first set it up on the pc and then also used it on my laptop which works fine

PaulM94 said:

Yes I used the same file when I first set it up on the pc and then also used it on my laptop which works fine

Click to expand...

If the laptop works fine and the PC does not there must be something different about either the Windows install or the Tutorial procedure followed for enabling Windows Mail. If those two things were done exactly the same on both machines then Windows Mail would work (or not work) the same on each machine.

Windows Update replaced your "c:\program files\windows mail\msoe.dll". You should replace it everytime with the (old) working version of msoe.dll. To do this, you have to take ownership of the new msoe.dll, then change permissions and delete it.

To simplify the procedure, you can create a batch file to restore the dll. First you have to put a copy of the working dll into "C:\program files\Windows Mail" folder, naming it "msoe-working.dll", then launch this batch file everytime WinMail doesn't run:


Hope it helps!