I can't say that anything pops out as to why this would occur. If I
understand your original post, the first time you load Outlook (after
logging on and presumably NOT using fast user switching on Windows XP where
you might be leaving an instance of Outlook loaded under another logged in
user account) and then try to use Word then you get the error message that
Word cannot be used as your e-mail compose editor. However, this also
implies that on the 2nd and subsequent loads of Outlook then you can use
Word as the e-mail editor. Is that right? Or is Word never usable as
Outlook's email editor?
Before loading Outlook, and with Outlook and Word not running, check if
there are any remnant but hung processes named outlook.exe or winword.exe in
Task Manager's Process tab panel. If Outlook (or Word) hung when it was
last closed, its window disappears but its process might fail to unload, and
this corrupted remnant process can have all sorts of deleterious effects on
subsequent loads of Outlook, Word, Explorer, Windows file system, or even in
other applications.
Check what plug-ins are installed in Outlook (Tools -> Options -> Other ->
Advanced). Also try starting Outlook in safe mode ("outlook.exe /safe") to
see if the first load of Outlook gets it to use Word as its e-mail editor.
Outlook will not load any of its plug-ins when started in safe mode. Also
make sure you start just Outlook (outlook.exe) and not some wrapper program,
like Outlook-QuoteFix, which then loads Outlook.
Try running the Detect and Repair (under the Help menu, I think).
Try running msconfig.exe to disable all startup programs, reboot, and see if
Outlook can then call Word as its email editor. msconfig.exe doesn't come
with Windows 2000 but is available under Windows 98/ME/XP. If you don't
have msconfig.exe, you can download it from
http://downloads.thetechguide.com/msconfig.zip, or you can use Mike Lin's
Startup applet (don't know the page but a Google search on "Mike Lin" would
reveal his web site).
Word will use the email.dot template file when it gets loaded by Outlook.
Word uses that template to show the appropriate toolbars, buttons, and form
for composing e-mail. I would think that if email.dot were corrupted that
Word would always have a problem getting called by Outlook as its e-mail
editor.
While you describe the error, you didn't relate the exact error message.
You might be able to search on that exact error message at
http://support.microsoft.com/ under "Outlook 2003" to see if an applicable
KB article comes up.
