ATTN: Since I originally posted this message I have written a complete step-by-step guide to getting Office & Outlook 2000 running on Windows Vista. Head on over to my Outlook 2000 on Vista page to get the answer you are looking for.
Does Office 2000 run on Windows Vista? YES! And I will tell you how in just a moment.
The stats for my blog tell me that a lot of you get here by searching for information on Outlook 2000 and Vista. In fact, the terms vista, outlook & 2000 are all in 5 of the top 10 searches strings that get to this site.
So, how do you get Outlook 2000 to work with Windows Vista:
Use Explorer to navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\System
Copy wab32.dll and wab32res.dll to C:\Windows\System32This might be enough, but I had to go further. Outlook lost my account information when I upgraded to Vista. When I tried to add an account I was told I needed to re-install Outlook. I un-installed Outlook, and re-installed it (you do have your CD handy, right?!?). I added my account information, but it still would not connect saying there was no account information. That was weird.
I reboot my computer and launched Outlook. When I clicked on Send/Receive it said there was no account associated with mail and would I like to associate e-mail with the account I created earlier. I told it yes, and it was able to connect as well as send and receive e-mails.
It’s that simple, as if this is simple or even intuitive.
I hope you all enjoy this little tid-bit. Now that I have helped you out, please leave me a comment (or e-mail me directly) so I know it was of value.
Thanks!
March 14, 2007 at 6:20 am |
Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately it didn’t work
March 20, 2007 at 6:38 pm |
Has anyone figured out how to install office 2000 on Vista? It does not seem to work. Always get Error1305: Error reading from file…
March 26, 2007 at 11:18 am |
Worked like a charm! Thanks!
March 26, 2007 at 10:37 pm |
Bless you, Scott! It worked great! (I had almost given up on Vista and was going to go back to XP Pro.)
March 31, 2007 at 7:07 pm |
Thanks this helped me get Outlook 2000 running on my system. I don’t normally use Outlook but was helping a client debug long distance.
For those this didn’t work for it may be necessary to run Explorer in Administrator mode. Hold down Ctrl-Shift as you click Explorer.
Thanks again for the helpful post.
~ Dan
April 5, 2007 at 7:02 pm |
This worked to elim the .dll errors related to the Address book; however, every time I open Outlook, it starts off with the “Outlook 2000 startup” window, click Next, and it asks if I want to use the same config as the previously installed version, answer yes, and it opens Outlook ok. No idea how to keep it from going back to startup window each time……
Thanks for the vast improvement, at least able to use now……..
April 12, 2007 at 9:42 am |
You are a god! I’d send you a million bucks right now, but don’t have the address or the money. Thanks a bunch!
April 23, 2007 at 11:08 am |
Thanks, it worked! But I also have the “Outlook 2000 Startup” window problem that Gary was having. If anyone has overcome this issue, please let us know.
April 25, 2007 at 6:48 am |
thanks, its working well! you are very good!
only 1 problem.
starting outlook 2000 on vista home premium: always asking, if this should be the default program.
there is no wya to say that outlook2000 is the default for email,…
Peter from germany
April 30, 2007 at 3:19 pm |
is the above procedure only for Outlook 2000, or also for Office 2000? (my office 2000 disk didn’t have outlook on it, and my new Vista notebook already has Outlook installed). If I do this, do you think it might mess up the installed Vista Outlook?
May 1, 2007 at 9:29 am |
Thank you , I did it but I still have the same problem of Gary (message of April 5th, 2007 at 7:02 pm ) . “Every time I open Outlook, it starts off with the “Outlook 2000 startup” window, click Next, and it asks if I want to use the same config as the previously installed version, answer yes, and it opens Outlook ok.”
Maybe somebody found a solution for it ?
May 1, 2007 at 9:00 pm |
I got the same info elsewhere and it worked.
I still have a problem with the contact list in outlook versus Vista. The Vista location is used when I click on the address book but a different list is used when I click on the “TO:” in an email. Drives me crazy that I cannot configure it to be the same. Can anyone help??
May 5, 2007 at 7:07 am |
Thanks for sharing this valuable info. I was ready to return my new Dell laptop and get a mac if my software programs didn’t work with Vista.
Microsoft should be very grateful to you.
May 5, 2007 at 3:19 pm |
Worked like a charm, even for a seriously challenged user like me. Thanks.
May 9, 2007 at 2:30 pm |
I FOUND THE ANSWER TO THE STARTUP PROBLEM!
To stop Outlook 2000 from presenting the startup wizard and asking to be default do the following…
1) open explorer and find your outlook.exe within program files/office**…
2) right click outlook.exe and choose properties
3) change to compatibility tab
4) change the options to run in compatibility mode for Windows XP SP2, and run as administrator
5) click OK and load up outlook
6) complete the bloody wizard one more time and the default message too
7) close outlook and UNDO the options for compatibiliy mode and run as administrator
8) enjoy your working outlook without nagging wizards!!
I hope this works for everyone that needs it, another vista issue solved.
May 5, 2009 at 1:31 pm |
Brilliant – how you ever found this fix amazes me, but you have my gratitude for removing another blight from the Microsoft world
Thanks
June 18, 2010 at 7:23 am |
Thank you! Worked beautifully! And, I agree with Ray — I can’t imagine how you figured this out.
May 27, 2007 at 1:27 pm |
Thank you Chris. This was driving me nuts. Your solution worked great.
May 30, 2007 at 2:41 pm |
My thanks to Chris Street for the solution to the Outlook 2000 startup problem. It worked a treat first time.
June 1, 2007 at 2:07 pm |
Huge thanks to both Scott and to Chris Street for solving my problems with Vista vs Outlook 2000. I really DIDN’T want to upgrade to Office 2007 and now I don’t have to.
However, although I’ve successfully all my Outlook stuff from my old PC (Windows ME) to my new one (Vista), the contacts that are there don’t get recognised when I type in the To box. Any ideas how to fix this??
June 2, 2007 at 4:53 pm |
Thank you Chris. Took me a number of google hits to find your solution.
June 3, 2007 at 2:01 pm |
Chris — You are a dying breed of straightforward, logical, clear writing people who make things easy unlike those at u$.
June 3, 2007 at 8:41 pm |
Thanks a bunch!
Do you know if this allows Outlook to be the default mail handler now?
June 4, 2007 at 8:37 pm |
thank you for your advise, it worked perfectly.
Bernard
June 5, 2007 at 12:34 am |
Many thanks to Scott and Chris. You have solved the problems that were annoying the hell out of me.
June 8, 2007 at 1:50 pm |
Brilliant thanks. Copying those DLLs and using XP SP2 & Administrator compatibility worked a treat. Just one annoying feature left – it invokes User Account Control when starting Outlook (am I sure I trust it? – yes I am!) so means turning off UAC globally as haven’t found a way of telling it to trust individual applications.
June 10, 2007 at 8:43 pm |
I really could hug you! It took a number of google tries to get to your blog after I had almost given up on running Outlook 2000 with Vista! But your fixes solved my problem and & am good to go. Just have to get used to the new look for Contacts! Thanks so much!
June 12, 2007 at 3:34 pm |
Many thanks!!!!
June 12, 2007 at 5:31 pm |
Thank you very much. The new Windows Mail works just like Outlook but I need to be able to process some of my emails through my VB program. If I did not see your suggestion I would go back to XP. Now the outlook 2000 works fine with 3 accounts. It still prompts me the password for the 4th one even I’ve already removed that one. That’s OK with me. Thanks again.
June 13, 2007 at 7:21 am |
Top man! Worked a treat!
June 15, 2007 at 12:38 pm |
Thanks to Chris! Wizard problem solved. But I still can’t get outlook contacts to sync with my treo. It worked fine in XP, but now…nothing.
Any ideas?
June 26, 2007 at 1:13 am |
Your solution didnt work for me unfortunately. Outlook 2000 opens no problem but when I click on Send / Receive I get an Error 815 message. Any ideas???
June 26, 2007 at 7:28 pm |
Michael,
I would try uninstalling Outlook (only) and reinstall it after copying hte WAB files.
Check ALL the steps here:
http://miniburb.wordpress.com/outlook-2000-on-vista/
Scott
July 7, 2007 at 4:01 pm |
Thanks for a great tip and also to Chris for getting rid of the startup messages!
July 9, 2007 at 5:36 am |
Scott and Chris – thanks a gazillion! I didn’t expect to find solutions to both my Outlook 2000/Vista problems on one web page! My wife thinks I’m a genius!
July 12, 2007 at 3:13 pm |
Thanks Scott and Chris, U guys are legends ;o)
July 17, 2007 at 3:23 am |
Any idea how to make customise forms work? My installation went fine, but when I am opening a customised form from Outlook 2000 in Vista, I get the following error – an error occurred registering the form in the OLE registry. I never have this problem with XP+Outlook 2000. Thanks!
July 18, 2007 at 1:52 pm |
You the man! Thanks
July 29, 2007 at 7:24 am |
Dear Scott and Chris, Thank you very very very …..much.
August 4, 2007 at 5:43 pm |
thanks! It work for me
August 7, 2007 at 4:48 am |
Thanks for the information; this allowed me to get Outlook 2000 running on my wife’s computer. At first I thought I’d screwed up the installation. To add to Chris’ great instructions, one little caveat I found while getting rid of the annoying message at start up: after setting the compatibility mode and shutting down Outlook I had to actually go into Task Manager and kill the Outlook process. After that I brought it back up again and it worked like a charm. Thanks guys!
August 17, 2007 at 11:04 pm |
Thank you guys, both fixs for this worked great!
August 19, 2007 at 7:56 pm |
You so totally rock!!! You have saved me hours of additional frustration. Thanks for picking up the slack for Windohs.
September 2, 2007 at 12:57 pm |
Christ Street Rocks. Personally, I hate Vista. Can somebody tell what’s the upside?
September 3, 2007 at 8:17 pm |
You guys rock thank you! – They should rename Vista to Windows Forum as hommage to the fact I have to check them all anytime I have to do somthing!!!!
September 4, 2007 at 7:25 am |
Hi Scott,
Thanks for the WAB.dll tip. Any thoughts on how to access the Address Book / Windows Contacts in Word 2000 Envelope/Label printer?
Andy
September 6, 2007 at 12:02 pm |
YOU DA MAN!!! I wish I saw this earlier because I wasted all of last night trying similar things, but following your instructions step by step took seconds and have me going right away!!!
MANY THANKS.
September 10, 2007 at 1:28 am |
I concur with everyone else…YOU ARE THE MAN!!!!!!
Vista has been a nightmare!
September 15, 2007 at 6:53 pm |
Like everyone else, thanks!
I had a slightly easier time as I don’t use Outlook for e-mail, just contacts and calendar. I installed Office 2000 from CD-ROM on Vista, and copied over my .pst file from my old computer. All my contacts appeared, but whenever I edited one or tried to export I got the “Unable to update public free/busy data. An error occurred while attempting to open the Windows Address Book. Unable to find the WAB.DLL.” alert, So I found this blog and copied the two WAB DLLs, and I can edit my contacts in Outlook 2000 on Vista! So far I haven’t needed to run Outlook 2000 in compatibility mode.
I have the same problem as “Andy” above with Mail Merge into Word 2000. Word 2000′s Tools > Mail Merge > Get Data > Use Address Book… > Outlook Address Book results in “Word was unable to open the data source”. I guess the workaround will be to export Outlook records to a file.
I would strongly advise anyone who has other computers and hardware to STAY THE HELL AWAY from Vista. I expected (and got) lots of driver problems and software incompatibility, but not network misery. Vista can’t get an IP from my router (“DHCP broadcast incompatibility”), can’t browse my other computers (“Link Layer Topology Discovery” incompatible with earlier Windows), couldn’t mount my Windows 98 machine or network storage (“NTLM2 authentication incompatible”), etc.
September 16, 2007 at 2:43 pm |
Thank you so much: saved me many hours of frustration
September 16, 2007 at 6:44 pm |
Thank you so much. Those two fixes worked wonders!
However, emails can only be seen in the preview pane. When I double click to open a message a pop saying “Microsoft Outlook has stopped working: A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notifiy you if a solution is available” and shuts down. Is there any word on this activity or did I miss something?
Thank You
September 18, 2007 at 7:01 pm |
It works, thanks for all your help
September 21, 2007 at 2:15 pm |
Thanks…This worked great!!!
September 21, 2007 at 3:57 pm |
Thanks, Scott!
I love it when there is a simple solution for a problem that’s taken me all day to research it. They only have fixes for this in the knowledge base on microsoft.com going up to windows 98. You’d think they’d fix the problem by now. But, I guess they don’t expect people to still be using office 2000. It works for me though!
Thanks again!
September 21, 2007 at 6:40 pm |
Thanks, like everyone else. You made it possible for me to use Outlook 2000 on Vista Home Premium. I did not have to change back the Windows XP SP2 compatibility. Left it alone and Outlook is working however, I can’t bring my Inbox contents from Windows Mail into Outlook. Anybody knows how?
September 23, 2007 at 8:29 am |
Thanks for the WAB DLL fix and the “Stop that damned startup wizzard” fix. I was a few minutes away from wiping VISTA fdrom every PC in our organization.
I may still do that, though. VISTA has to be the worst version of Windows ever! (even allowing for Windows ME). I hate the windows explorer views, I hate the search function (doesn’t find a damned thing!). Seriously looking at a “IX” platform (Linux, Redhat or something similar).
Still, no matter how many people complain about Vista, Bill G and his toadies won’t change anything. Since when has anyone at Windoze Central ever listened to the people who pay their wages and dividends?
Enough moaning.
Once again, thank you everone here who contributed methods to rediuce the misery.
September 26, 2007 at 8:20 pm |
This helped me at least be able to reply-to and send a message when I type in the e-mail address. But I still get an error when I try and access the address book by hitting the “To” button on the new e-mail. The error says “The messaging interface has returned an unknown error. If the problem persists, restart Outlook.” I have restarted and re-installed outlook. No luck yet!
October 6, 2007 at 11:22 pm |
Thank you. The solution is written in a lucid manner. I was about to throw my laptop out
. Cheers – Billy owes one big time to you.
November 8, 2007 at 1:41 am |
Scott and Chris thanks so much worked a treat
November 25, 2007 at 10:47 am |
Consider this one of those “Random Features” of Microsofts.
I don’t understand why so many people are surprise by this type of issue!
First, to increase profits, kill off your old apps and OS, and force new ones. Its good business – customers will have to comply (NOT good business).
Vista is a nightmare with the learning curve, unless your new to computer in which you don’t have anything to compare to – but if you are going to start from scratch consider APPLE or LINUX. At least with Linux or a variant, users will get what they want in the OS (its made by the people for the people).
I am sure some Executives at Microsoft are pissed at the thought users will still be using the older version of Office. They will call it less secure, but I say Office 2000 does everything and MORE that I will ever need. Anything later in release versions tend to take away advanced user control and at an increase in ‘computer resources’.
We are near an UGLY point in technology. Options are getting further away from what the consumer whats and closer to what is minimal freedom.
No, I am not paranoid. Realistic and aware is my goal.
Thanks for the fix fellas, I don’t have time to track this type of issue myself. I too would have just gotten rid of vista. XP is now at its peak, knowing what to unable/disable remove and tweak to get the best OS Microsoft has ever made.
I tell you now – if you don’t like what you see in Vista, just wait till you see the next version.
December 2, 2007 at 11:43 pm |
Nice job guy’s….. you helped a lot of people….
December 5, 2007 at 3:54 pm |
Thank you SO much to Scott and Chris. Both of those issues were driving me nuts. I was about to scream at the computer: “This is not the first time I’m using Outlook you moron!!” You saved me a lot in not having to buy another version of Office.
December 6, 2007 at 2:14 pm |
Simply…..thank you!! I only needed the first step. Why can’t anything be easy! Why can’t the Windows website be so easy to find a fix! Thank you , thank you , thank you.
December 16, 2007 at 10:45 am |
Scott, I’ve followed your suggestions on the dll files. Still got “couldn’t find wab file” error. Went to your step-by-step. Got error “Proc entry pt StrTokEx could not be located in MSOERT2.dll when going to TOOLS/Address Book. Also get “Unable to find the WAB file”. Can you help? I’m really struggling.
Thanks, Don
December 17, 2007 at 5:00 pm |
Thanks for the tip! Worked fine on my PC and my dads emails are now all imported from an old failed HDD (hence the need for a new PC).
December 19, 2007 at 5:59 pm |
thanks
December 31, 2007 at 7:43 pm |
hope this works
January 3, 2008 at 9:04 am |
Excellent thanks so much for the tip. I am a computer numnuts and it worked for me. If I can understand and do it – anyone can! Thank you
January 8, 2008 at 12:32 am |
Thank you very much for this tip. I had tried several other ways, but this was the only one that worked. I was tearing my hair out trying to sort this Very simple instruction and easy to follow. problem out, I was determined to use MS Outlook on my new computer. A very big thank you.
January 10, 2008 at 10:53 am |
thanks scott and chriss you guys are hero’s !! i am sitting in zimbabwe and the nearest vista rep is 1000 km away! so you guys saved me big time.
i am still getting the wizard on start up though even after following chris’s instruction.
brian suggested after setting the compatibility mode and shutting down Outlook I had to actually go into Task Manager and kill the Outlook process. not sure how to do this though?? any ideas??
thanks guys
January 11, 2008 at 1:34 am |
Thank you for informing others how they can have outlook running on their Vista platforms. Somehow I muddled through anad got outlook running before I found your web-site. My only problem is that I cannot retrieve contacts from the address book when I am in a new message and I click on “to” to insert a name into the “to” field.
As soon as I click on TO, I receive the error message: the messaging interface has returned an unknown error. If the problem persists restart Outlook.
I am able to save contacts in the address book. I have about 30 names & addresses stored there. I just cannot retrieve the data from the TO field when I am composing a new e-mail
MS has solutions for a similar outlook error but those solutions apply to Outlook that is configured for a corporate or workgroup mode. Mine is not. I am configured for internet mail only.
Are you able to add a name from your address book /contact folder in an e-mail you are composing? Please help, thanks
January 12, 2008 at 2:39 pm |
Thank you Scott for your reply. My Outlook is now working.
The ‘To’ and auto complete buttons work, at last! I saved my address book on the Xp in the Wab file format before importing it into the vista windows address book, now Outlook is working as normal.
That install Outlook Express etc. message disappeared after an auto Windows update download and it hasn’t shut down or thrown any more error messages at me, just coincidence?
Everything except the office assistant ( no loss ) is working fine. Thank you for your guide it really helped.
January 13, 2008 at 4:17 am |
This also worked for me to eliminate the .dll errors related to the Address book and do away with the Outlook 2000 startup window. I can now rum Oulook – But, I still get an error when I try and access the address book by hitting the “To” button on the new e-mail. The error says “The messaging interface has returned an unknown error. Anyone find a fix? I too think that the WinMail app is keeping Office from accessing contacts in the “to” field.
January 23, 2008 at 12:48 am |
Same problem–can’t use To:
January 23, 2008 at 3:35 pm |
Hello Scott,
Thank you so much for the hints! I finally made it work. However, I still needed to do one more step: Make sure you have selected Corporate Workgroup (CW) and not Internet Mail Only (IMO) as installation type.
To change the installation type from IMO to CW, follow these steps:
1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. On the Mail Delivery Tab, click Reconfigure Mail Support.
3. On the E-mail Service Options page, click to select the mail support option you are switching to. Click Next.
4. Read the warning message and then click Yes. Outlook will close.
5. Start Outlook. The Windows Installer will start and install the required files.
This will also solve problems like the “Proc entry pt StrTokEx could not be located in MSOERT2.dll error message.
Thanks for your blog!
January 30, 2008 at 7:45 pm |
works great. Thanks, Thanks Thanks
February 2, 2008 at 1:46 pm |
Same problem as Frank, outlook works but still can’t use the address book or TO buttons, get the messaging interface error message. Any help???
February 16, 2008 at 8:35 am |
Thanks to Chris and Scott. Both solutions worked perfectly the first time.
March 7, 2008 at 2:27 am |
thanks for the tips. I messed something some how. I had this working but I had to restore my computer to factory. When I installed outllook I obviously did something out of order because now I have no “WAB” error but I also have no contacts when I click “To:” I had this all working 8 hours ago when I started the restore. My contacts are in outlook just not in the address book. I tried reinstalling but something doesnt get removed because after restore I dont have to set anything up. Any ideas??
March 9, 2008 at 9:32 am |
Just recently purchased pc with vista. It was getting frustrating a bit with annoyances like this one. THANKS so much for taking the time to share your knowledge! Used both tips and got it working just fine.
March 10, 2008 at 3:14 pm |
Copying these two file also solves this same problem with XP Thanks
March 18, 2008 at 4:29 pm |
I copied the WAB data sets to system32 – and it worked!!
Thank you very much!
March 21, 2008 at 10:17 am |
Like many, I have “upgraded” – against my better judgement – to Vista and had very mixed results. I was about to move everything over to open source & Linux, but have found that OpenOffice is slow. Have Microsoft put something into their code which slows down competitive programs?
Anyway, thank you guys, you have saved me a LOT of time.
March 25, 2008 at 4:06 pm |
Ta v much. I have wasted a good few hours on trying to get Outlook 2000 to work in vista! I still have a problem with my contacts (which I depend on) and have not yet tried to copy my calendar over, so I will keep going!
March 26, 2008 at 12:07 pm |
Thanks Scott for the fix, worked great, keep up the good work!
April 2, 2008 at 9:24 am |
Thanks for the tip. It worked perfectly first time around!
April 9, 2008 at 6:24 pm |
Re – Contacts
There is a way.
Export your outlook contacts into a csv file
put in a single contact into windows contacts
export windows contacts into a csv file
copy all the outlook contacts (including headings) and paste into the windows contact csv file
sort the new data so they fit the proper fields in the windows contact file
save and import into windows contact.
You can now use the outlook / windows contacts menu for finding and inputting the emails, including search, etc.
April 15, 2008 at 2:31 am |
Worked Perfect – Thanks!
April 15, 2008 at 3:45 am |
Thank you very much for your help!!!
At this moment, people in my company think I am the best. Maybe I should credit Chris for his tutorial, but I think I will let my boss think I came up with the solution XD. It was very annoying for people to configure outlook every time they were opening it.
I bookmark your blog so I will check it if I find another problem with old Windows software and Vista.
April 19, 2008 at 11:44 am |
Thanks so much!!! I’m glad my wife suggested I do a search for Office 2000 and Vista, and that I ended up here! What a simple solution! Much better than reinstalling and pulling what hair I have left! Much more time efficient and caring, too! Thanks again!!! God Bless!!!
April 29, 2008 at 2:05 pm |
Thanks for the tips, just setting up the first Vista PC in our company after putting it off as long as possible, and quickly got frustrated with the Startup dialog problem. A quick search, and found your solution, which has worked perfectly on our corporate e-mail config. Top Stuff
May 1, 2008 at 11:53 am |
Thank you sir, this worked perfectly. Saved me time and money!
June 1, 2008 at 7:17 am |
Thanks for posting the procedure. It was easy and worked great.
I’m a late outlook/vista user. I decided almost a year ago it was hopeless, but I found you blog today and solved the problem.
June 4, 2008 at 4:49 pm |
RE the fix for the Outlook 2000 Setup Wizard, the fix works! BTW, I would go a little easy on the MS folks. I’ve been doing tech support since 1990, and I remember the bad old days of trying to make all kinds of programs work, first with DOS and then with Windows 3.x. Trying to make old programs and new OSs work together is daunting. Other than this issue, so far, so good with Vista.
June 19, 2008 at 10:25 am |
The fixed worked and stop the default issue. BUT now when I open outlook and got to create an email and I click on “TO” button it tells me “The messageing interface has retunred an unknown error. If problem persists restart outlook.” Does anyone have any idea what the issue could be?
July 10, 2008 at 10:12 am |
For those experiencing problems getting Outlook contacts to work when clicking on the ‘To:’ button, this is what worked for me, but I was migrating Outlook 2000 data from an XP system to a Vista system. YMMV.
First, Scott’s procedure did allow me to access contacts in the Contacts folder, as expected, so go ahead and follow those directions.
I did this on the new machine AFTER importing the PST file containing everything from the old machine. Do the File > Import/Export thing to export your Contacts folder. I exported as a Comma Separated Values (Windows) file type and selected only the Contacts folder paying attention to the export path (I saved to Desktop). This required me to pop in the Office2k cd to install a necessary component – you may not necessarily experience this.
After export, go the the Start menu and open the Windows Contacts program. With the default theme, across the top you should see Import (otherwise, dig through your menus and find the option to import). Import the contacts csv file that you just exported from Outlook. I didn’t bother with changing any of the mapping. The Windows Contacts window should populate with your contacts.
Back in Outlook, even without a restart, I was now able to bring up the list of original contacts by clicking ‘To:’ in a new message.
Hope it helps someone.
July 22, 2008 at 10:19 am |
Help please with calendar in Outlook 2000 and Windows Vista!
Our small company has not yet upgraded to a new version of Outlook/Office but my boss’s laptop is now a Windows Vista home machine. I’ve done the work arounds to get contacts and outlook working, etc. although it requires contstant updating to keep the contacts corrected. Also, we often find outlook loading and running 2 and 3 times in the background, but even get around that. However, and this is the big issue now, the calendar, while you can see appts and items, when you go to click on one, it says item not found and will not open it. I think you can create new items, Outlook just won’t open them.
I’ve done several tech look ups, etc. and no seems to have info on this. Microsoft suggests exporting the calendar to csv then to Google and then to Vista mail and stop using Outlook, but I’m not sure this is an option. Any suggestions on getting the calendar to work in Outlook 2000 for Vista? THANKS!
August 2, 2008 at 11:13 am |
It worked! Thank you so much! I just bought an iPhone and the only way I could get the contacts off my old Mobile PC phone was to install an old version of Outlook I had to import the files. I spent a whole day trying to get this to work and yours was the final step that got me in the clear. Thank you!
August 2, 2008 at 5:46 pm |
Thanks for the .dll solution. Worked fine.
August 4, 2008 at 12:59 am |
thanks buddy. i’m so glad you were there to help me find the simple solution to this problem!
August 27, 2008 at 9:02 am |
Worked great!. Thanks alot….no problems now.
September 5, 2008 at 6:01 pm |
Worked great in Vista, thanks.
September 22, 2008 at 9:07 am |
I tried to do the import process as described by TOMWS but when I click on the import button I get a smaller window that is completely blank with a red X in the middle of it. Any ideas??? All help is appreciated.
October 1, 2008 at 1:57 pm |
Thanks – solved the start-up problem and WAB.
October 12, 2008 at 6:31 pm |
Hi Scott,
You are truely wonderful… thank you..
October 15, 2008 at 11:08 am |
Thank you, thank you thank you!
Works like a charm.
and again: Thanks!!!
October 21, 2008 at 10:15 pm |
Well, it certainly was an adventure, but your pointers helped a great deal.
But, I would like to make one suggestion regarding the WAB DLL error. You don’t need to copy these DLLs over to your system32 folder. The error happens because Outlook is not finding the required folder in your search path. So, instead of copying DLLs, just modify the search path to include the folder where they are located. You do that as follows:
1) right-click on “Computer” (if you don’t have the Computer icon on your desktop, you can right-click on the “Computer” item in the “Start” menu, OR, via “Control Panel” (Classic View), click on “System”).
2) choose “Properties”.
3) Click on “Advanced system settings”
4) Click on “Environment variables”
5) In the “System variables” pane, locate the “Path” variable, and select it.
6) Click “Edit”
7) Add the following at the front of the value:
c:\program files\common files\system;
NOTE: THE TRAILING SEMI-COLON IS REQUIRED TO SEPARATE THIS PATH FROM THE OTHERS!!
8) Click “OK” all the way to apply the change.
9) Exit OUTLOOK. Use Task Manager to locate OUTLOOK.EXE and end the process, if you see it there.
10) Restart Outlook. The WAB DLL error should now be gone.
This method (while more arduous than copying DLLs to system32) is preferred because if the DLLs are ever updated, they will get updated in the “common files\system” folder, not in your system32 folder. As well, it is generally frowned upon to stick things in system32 that are not system-related. One of the benefits of post-Windows 3.1 is better separation of applications from the operating system (especially DLLs).
Also, I spent about 2 hours trying to figure out the “Contacts”/”Address Book” problem until it dawned on me to export the “Contacts” as a CSV file and then import them in the address book. Only after I did that did I notice TomWS (above) had already made that recommendation. Well, it does work.
I’m new to Vista (3 days), don’t like Office 2007 much, and can’t afford that upgrade anyway.
Thanks for the blog!
October 30, 2008 at 10:32 am |
I think for good work with Outlook need use some tools for security and more than,on example your files will may be damage or delete on reason virus or hackers attacks,i use-unable to view email in outlook 2000,and feel yourself quite sure,because it extract your data from files with *.pst extension, when unable to view email in Outlook 2000,can export recovered content into a file with *.pst extension, that can be opened with any email client, compatible with Microsoft Outlook, when unable to view folder in Outlook,can help, when your mailbox on Microsoft Outlook experiences problems,program is very easy to use, it does not require any special computer skills.
November 11, 2008 at 10:33 pm |
Chris, Thanks for your help! Your suggestion worked to get rid of the wizard.
Scott, thanks for your help too! While your suggestion didn’t solve the WAB problem, it led to John’s suggestion from 10/21/08 which did the trick!
John, thanks a ton for your help! It would appear that outlook now works as it should! I’m using vista 64-bit and I’m wondering if that has something to do with the fact that copying the wab files didn’t help me.
Also, many thanks to all of the bloggers that gave feedback. So many times people never respond to solutions to let the rest of us know whether or not they worked for them.
November 20, 2008 at 4:12 pm |
Thank you sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar
November 23, 2008 at 5:26 am |
Saved me a shedload of work. The copy and paste of the 2 files was all that was required. Thanks v much!
November 28, 2008 at 12:00 pm |
HELP!!!
Scott’s and Chris’s suggestions helped, but I still have a problem. I have never used Outlook before, and I don’t have a Personal Folders file. So, Outlook starts, and it doesn’t bring up the startup wizard anymore, but it gives me a dialogue box telling me to “Create a new perrsonal folders file” or “Open an existing personal folders file.”
I try to create one, just using the default: “Personal Folders(1).pst,” and then I get an error message:
“The messaging interface has returned an unknown error. If the problem persists, restart Outlook.”
I get the same thing every time I try restarting outlook. HELP!!!
All I need is to be able to get the “winmail.dat” files that people using outlook keep sending to me……
November 28, 2008 at 1:00 pm |
OK, my brother told me about Thunderbird from the Mozilla people, and they have an add-on that allowed me (finally!) to read the attachments that I couldn’t get from people using Outlook on my campus server, which was why I needed Outlook, anyway.
I still haven’t resolved the problems with Outlook, but I’m just letting it be.
Thanks.
December 26, 2008 at 8:03 am |
Worked perfectly, thanks.
January 20, 2009 at 7:29 pm |
Scott,
Thanks a million! Copying wab32.dll and wab32res.dll from C:\Program Files\Common Files\System to C:\Windows\System32, with the added tip provided by Dan Butler of depressing Ctrl-Shift when clicking Windows Explorer to gain administrator priviledg, did solve all my problems. Outlook 2000 now runs normally on Vista.
Mike
January 24, 2009 at 7:00 pm |
Please add me to the list of very grateful people who was so glad to get rid of that annoying message at the start about default this and that, and the fact that rebooting got rid of the problem with sending email.
God knows what went through the mind of Bill Gates when he dreamt up Vista as it’s a bloody mess.
I haven’t tried copying across my address book and other stuff yet, but I’ll be back to this page, as I see those have been mentioned here, in case I have any further problems.
Cheers, Dom
February 2, 2009 at 3:16 pm |
Thank’s a lot …
March 7, 2009 at 2:59 am |
Thanks for all the above tips, I am using Office XP Pro and since running it on Vista everytime I open Outlook it asks for the passwords to my accounts, even though I check the save passwords box.
It worked fine on XP but this is annoying on Vista. Any ideas please
March 13, 2009 at 10:17 am |
Thank you, after a restart this work perfectly.
April 3, 2009 at 9:03 pm |
Question, I copied the files and got outlook to work, but now when i try to sync it with my samsumg omnia phone it says that outlook is not installed on the computer. Does anyone know anyway around this. Thanks.
April 11, 2009 at 10:59 pm |
Hi Scott,
It does not seem to work. I have Outlook 2000 on Vista Home Premium, Always get Error….
“THIS APPLICATION HAS FAILED TO START BECAUSE GAPI32.DLL WAS NOT FOUND. RE-INSTALLING THE APPLICATION MAY FIX THIS PROBLEM.”
“MICROSOFT OUTLOOK HAS STOPPED WORKING, A PROBLEM CAUSED THE PROGRAM TO STOP WORKING CORRECTLY. WINDOWS WILL CLOSE THE PROGRAM AND NOTIFY YOU IF A SOLUTION IS AVAILABLE.”
Thank you,
Jan
April 16, 2009 at 7:27 am |
Thank you very much Chris Street. The “Outlook 2000 Startup” problem had been driving me crazy for the past year. Your solution worked like a charm!
April 18, 2009 at 6:54 pm |
My old computer crashed and I want to buy a new one that will have Vistas running. My Microsoft office is Office XP standard. Can I install this office pkg. with vistas?
April 24, 2009 at 6:48 pm |
-I have a desktop with OE and copied the address book to a USB flash drive.
- I have Outlook on my new laptop w/ Vista, which works, but lacks all my e-mail addresses.
-I can open the flash drive on the laptop and view my addresses so I
know they are there
- I attempted to transfer (copy) my addresses from the flash drive to the laptops Outlook, but I get “0 of 0 addresses imported”.
—can you give me procedures for moving my OE address book from the desktop to the laptop which uses Outlook?
thanks
April 27, 2009 at 5:14 pm |
I would like to repeat MT’s question:
How do you get Outlook 2000 to create PST files on VISTA Home Premium? The interface error is rather illusive.
Best regards,
DB
May 22, 2009 at 11:48 am |
I want to acknowledge your help and the time you saved me.
I actually tried a solution that was recommended at a tech site. They had the two dll files in a zip format available to download. These were not the correct files and were not recognized properly even after attempting a registry command. I looked in the common folder and there they were
A simple copy to the system32 folder as instructed solved the problem.
Thanks for the help.
August 25, 2009 at 6:23 am |
Thanks!
Easily followed directions, and immediate results…
More help than Microsoft offered….
August 30, 2009 at 8:30 pm |
unable to find WAB.DLL can you help with my vista program?
August 30, 2009 at 10:22 pm |
The WAB files should be somewhere on your C: drive after installing Office 2000. Do a search of the Program Files folder and all its sub-folders. If that doesn’t do it then check the Office 2000 CD.
Scott
September 3, 2009 at 10:07 am |
Thanx!
1) I got it running with John’s comment about PATH:
http://miniburb.wordpress.com/2007/03/07/outlook-2000-on-windows-vista/#comment-6534
2) I got rid of the wizard with Chris Street’s comment about compatibility mode:
http://miniburb.wordpress.com/2007/03/07/outlook-2000-on-windows-vista/#comment-1798
3) I got TO to work with Stefan’s comment on Corporate Workgroup:
http://miniburb.wordpress.com/2007/03/07/outlook-2000-on-windows-vista/#comment-6018
Thanx Scott, John, Chris, and Stefan!
September 3, 2009 at 10:11 am |
@John
It’s WAB32.DLL It’s on the office CD, in a cab call wab.cab
from dos do a search on the on the CD dir/s wab.*
Or, follow John’s comment on PATH.
September 14, 2009 at 12:40 pm |
Thanks for the tips! These days, I only use Outlook 2000 (along with Agendus for Outlook) for calendar purposes, and your fix works beautifully. I’m a happy camper now, and I’ll keep this page in my Misc. bookmarks folder for future reference and to recommend to others.
September 21, 2009 at 5:35 am |
I still could not get it to run on Vista64 – even after putting the dll files into system32 – but found a post that said (basically)
open: – c:/program files/microsoft office/ (or whatever path takes you to…)
Find ” outlook.exe icon ”
Right-click on it
From the dialog box, click “Compatibility” tab
Select the option to run the program in Windows XP
Save and close.
Restart computer…
So far seems to work. (It may STILL require the DLL files to be resident in the system32 folder, but I have no idea if this is so… it just worked for me.
September 24, 2009 at 12:41 pm |
you need to rename wab32.dll to wab.dll for this to work
October 7, 2009 at 8:00 am |
Hiya I just got Outlook 2000 today and was getting the WAB DLL message when I tried to open my contacts. I tried both solutions and although it’s stopped telling me it was unble to find the WAB doodah it now just says that an error has occured. Please help it’s driving me potty!! Oh I have Windows Vista Basic if that makes any difference.
October 8, 2009 at 5:31 am |
Short of uninstalling and reinstalling Outlook (I have seen this work a couple of times) I don’t have an answer for you. You may have to get a newer version of Office. I don’t know if Vista Basic matters, I have never tried basic.
Scott
October 14, 2009 at 11:29 pm |
Hi
I have installed outlook 2000 on my pc which has windows vista basic. In outlook i’m trying to add a signature and I apply and save but when I compose a new email my signature is not there. Can someone help?
October 16, 2009 at 5:59 am |
Try going into administrator mode while doing this. Then when you know if works turn off admin mode.
Scott
October 17, 2009 at 3:04 pm |
Thanks for the tip. It worked. I copied and pasted the two files as per your instructions but then had to turn off computer and restart. When I was prompted to respond “YES” or “NO” on the reboot I clicked “YES” as you said to do here:
“I reboot my computer and launched Outlook. When I clicked on Send/Receive it said there was no account associated with mail and would I like to associate e-mail with the account I created earlier. I told it “YES”, and it was able to connect as well as send and receive e-mails.”
I then clicked on Outlook and was then able to received email.
Thanks for making the effort and posting this solution!
Sam
November 16, 2009 at 3:59 am |
Thank you for the solution to copy the WAB files and make Outlook 2000 work under Vista! Greetings from Rotterdam, The Netherlands
November 23, 2009 at 4:39 pm |
You are the man…You saved my laptop from being skipped across the lake.
December 7, 2009 at 11:02 pm |
It worked for me too but I can’t sent out emails, I can only recieve them so how do we fix this problem
January 6, 2010 at 5:36 pm |
Thanks. Looks like this tip has been helping people for the past few years!
January 23, 2010 at 1:28 am |
Stefan’s info (on Jauary 23, 2008 at 3:35pm) worked
perfecty for getting rid of the “Unable to open address book” or “wab32.dll error” in Windows 7–64 bit version, and now it
works perfectly. I had already moved the files from “System”
to “System 32″ as others have done for other versions of
Windows–including Windows 7–32 BIT VERSSION, but
until I found Stefan’s solution of changing to “Corporate
Workgroup (CW) and not Internet Mail Only (IMO) as
installation type,” it was totally impossible for me to
send any e-mail–receiving was no problem, tho.
THANK YOU Stefan. You saved me money from
having to update Outlook and feeling more rage.
(Chase)
February 26, 2010 at 10:24 am |
Good work, hope to hear more from you.Are you working in a Group that you can make such a fine Blog?
April 9, 2010 at 12:28 pm |
WOW, you really are great. This problem solving you did makes me look good too.
Thanks for all the help
HEC
June 14, 2010 at 11:44 pm |
Somehow I keep getting an error message, 0xc0000005, that will not let me open Outlook 2000, which is my email default. I have Windows Vista. I’ve done a search about possible corrections for this problem and I’ve tried several of them, but have had no success in getting Outlook to open and once again be my default email program. Can anyone please help me out with a solution in getting this issue resolved?
Thanks!
Matt
June 15, 2010 at 1:00 pm |
Sorry Matt, I am not familiar with that error message. I think it has been long enough… it is time to upgrade to Outlook 03 or 07. After all, Outlook 2010 is out now, and you are hanging onto a piece of saftware that is 10 years old. You have gotten your money’s worth out of Outlook 2000… time to upgrade.
Scott
June 15, 2010 at 3:07 pm |
Scott, is there a way to upgrade to Outlook 2003 or 2007 at no charge?
June 15, 2010 at 4:24 pm |
Not that I am aware of. If that were possible Microsoft would be out of business. You might want to try eBay or something. Office 03 did not require activation, so as long as you get the original discs and such you can verify you are the current owner.
Scott
January 12, 2012 at 6:50 pm |
Worked perfectly. Thank you!
February 2, 2012 at 6:37 am |
OMG!!! thank-you so much! It was doing my head in that I couldn’t send e-mails. Lifesaver!!!