I uninstalled Norton Interent Secruity and replaced it with McAfree Anti Virus.  McAfee did not load properly so I uninstalled it. Outlook will will no longer work. The program opens but I get an error message that says Outlook has experinced a problem and needs to close.  It appears that the uninstalls deleted  files that Outlook needs (?) 
 1)How can I back up my contacts and mail messages without being able to open Outlook?
 2) Any idea on how to fix Outlook?
 3) Can I reinstall Outlook or will I nuke my mail and contacts if i do this?  Your email and contacts are probably fine.  They are contained in a .PST file (probably named OUTLOOK.PST).  (1) Search your drive for *.PST files, and the one with the most recent timestamp is probably the one you need.  Make a BACKUP copy of this file, and (2) re-install Outlook.  (3) You shouldn't lose any email or contacts by re-installing, but you have a backup from (1) just in case.

If re-installing Outlook does not work, then create a new Outlook profile (Control Panel -> Internet Mail) and try RUNNING Outlook with the new profile. If you create a new profile, you may need to point Outlook to the old PST file to get your old email and contacts to show up.thanks for the tip.  I uninstalled Outllok and reinstalled but the error still crashes Outlook when it opens.   I also deleted the profile and BUILT a new prodfile to no avail.   I searched for any .pst files and found NONE.  I don't know where to go from here.   Are you using Microsoft Outlook, or COULD it be Outlook Express?  What version of Windows are you running?

The Microsoft Outlook program comes with Microsoft Office.

The Outlook Express program comes with Windows.I am running Windows XP home with SP2 INSTALLED.  I am using the full Microsoft Office 2000 professional suite that comes with Outlook.   How did you search for your PST files?  Try this command from the command prompt:
Code: [Select]dir c:\*.pst /a /sDoes it give you anything?