Sudden loss of Word as Outlook editor

[Nickason]

I am using Ms Office 2003 Professional on Windows XP Media Center PC since past six months. Mostly I use look Outlook for emails and MS Word as Outlook editor. Everything was working fine so far. Even yesterday I replied to about 25 emails using the same. When I reached on 26th email, suddenly I received an error message saying:

“Microsoft Word is set to be your email editor. However, Word is unavailable, not installed, or is not the same version as Outlook. The Outlook email editor will be used instead.”

What has gone wrong suddenly in between? I can see Word is still installed and working fine. Then why has it stopped working suddenly in Outlook? Somebody please help.

[Jemond]

It is really a very strange problem. Anyways, what I can suggest you as of now is first Try to repair using Office Media CD. Most probably it should fix the problem but if still you face the same problem then try running Windows Updates and install all latest security patches. See if it fixes the problem.

[Nickason]

Thank you very much for the help Jemond. I did as you said. However repairing Office dint fixed the problem but later after installing patches from Windows Update and restarted PC, Word seems to be working fine so far with Outlook. Help appreciated. Btw, can anyone tell me what the cause of this issue was?

[Jasonholt]

Even Microsoft has described this problem in their Knowledge base with solution. I think you guys should check the same as well:

You receive the error message "Word is unavailable, not installed, or is not the same version as Outlook" when you try to create, to edit, or to reply to an e-mail message in Outlook 2003

[6t5]

WOW! I had this same issue, did all kinds of fixes and stuff found on the net and found this thread. This was happening on a user here in the office who uses email to chat back and forth with his spouse and low and behold it was yahoo she uses and of course those get pretty long. The error always popped up when replying to her, but worked on most other emails. So now I know why.

Thanks again for your assistance and information!