Restoring Outlook 2003 to Its First-Run Condition

You might occasionally want to restore Outlook to its first-run condition. This can be helpful if you've played with Outlook settings extensively and can no longer get Outlook to work as it should. You might get a new computer and hand your computer over to another user.

Unfortunately, you can't just uninstall Office or Outlook and reinstall. Many of the customized settings in Outlook are stored in the Registry. When you reinstall Outlook, settings that persist in the Registry will remain and become active again.

Although there isn't a one-step option to return Outlook to its first-run condition, there are a series of Knowledge Base articles on this very subject. At the time this book went to press, the Outlook 2003 Knowledge Base article was not published, but presumably it will be very soon after Outlook 2003 is released.

For more information about searching the Microsoft Knowledge Base, see "Getting Help on the Web," p. 43.