Outlook 2003 Hangs Up when starting MS Word as YOur E-mail Editor

I am getting an issue that Outlook locks up if I am either trying to reply to or forward an email message. When I do not select to use Microsoft Word as the email editor, then Outlook seems to work OK. Also, after using Task Manager to close a non-responding Outlook, if I am going to start Outlook again, then I am getting a message that the PST file wasnt closed properly and is being checked. I dont know what to do at this point as what is going on with Outlook cant be explained. Can anyone please help me out? Thanks.

Have you checked whether MS Word is operating properly on its own. Did you try to go to Help and then Detect and Repair. You might be able to delete the Normal.Dot file?

Thanks for responding, MS word is working fine and I dont have any problems with it. I dont what do you mean by Normal.dot file and where exactly is it located. Can you please give me some details about it, so that I can get some information about it. Thanks.

Well, you can start by going in to Office Help and then Detect and Repair first and then if the issue still occurs then do a windows fine files and look in the Hidden files and System folders to find it out.

Thanks, I will check that for sure and let you know how it will work. But nobody told me what is the use of the Normal.dot file anyways?

Normal.dot file is just a Word Template that keeps all your default Word Settings and nothing else.

Alright, I tried to run Detect and Repair as said and I got an error message telling me "Office Source Engine" not being enabled. I solved that and again ran the Detect & Repair. After that I tried Outlook with Ms Word as the editor and it was working now. Now I am not getting any error message or report from running Detect and Repair, so I dont have any ideas? Thanks for the help.