Windows 7: Upgraded to MS Office 2010 - Outlook won't open

I have been using Office 2007 and have just purchased Office 2010. Installed it today and all seemed to install Ok except when I went to open Outlook I received the message: "Cannot start Microsoft Outlook.
Cannot open the Outlook window.
The set of folders cannot be opened.
The operation failed.The messaging
interfaces have returned an unknown
error.If problems persist, restart
Outlook. Outlook cannot open this item.
The item may be damaged"
There are then buttons for "Repair Tool" or "Cancel"
In "Repair Tool", a box then comes up asking: "Enter the name of the file you want to scan" Where do I find this?

Should I delete this new installation and start again? If I do, will I loose all my e-mail files including Address Book?

Did you upgrade overtop of 2007, or did you remove it first and then install 2010? A clean install is always better.

You didn't give any details as to what kind of e-mail account you have. Either way, you should have backed up your info to a .pst file, unless you are using IMAP or Exchange, before running the upgrade. I'm guessing you didn't. If not, search your computer for a .pst file or a .ost.

No , I didn't remove 2007 first. No installation info with the discs, just popped the disc in the drive.
I have a pop3 account but without outlook opening, I can't get into settings.
I am a complete novice, where would I look for .pst or .ost files?

Here's the stupid question of the evening:

What version of Office 2010 do you have?

The home/student version does not include Outlook. I don't know what you'd get if you installed it over an existing Office 2007 installation.

I'm using Windows Live Mail as an email client. Unfortunately, it's easier to migrate from Windows Live Mail to Outlook than it is to go the other way.

(At the moment, my email lives in "the cloud". I use an IMAP account with Gmail. The bad part of that it that if I want to synchronize a new WLM installation, it takes a while: something over 1GB of emails.)

Hi bobkn,
I'm installing Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010.
If I go into "all programs" Outlook shows as being installed - just can't access it !

You should be able to just search your entire C drive for either file type. That's where your content is stored. Once you find them and can verify their dates, back them up. Remove all instances of Office completely, and then give 2010 another shot cleanly. You can import the .pst file back into Outlook once it is installed.

seadog,
Have you a System Restore point created prior to the installation of Office 2010 that you could roll back to?