I have been using Outlook Express for years without too much of a problem until today.
I recently moved all my files onto a newer computer at work (we won’t call it new as it has been sitting there not being used since it was purchased in 2007, but it is a lot newer than the dying one I was using). I moved all my email files, address book everything over to the new computer and I was rather impressed that I did it without spending too many hours searching on Topeka (see Google’s April Fool’s Day joke for an explanation) for the help I needed in exporting and importing the files from old PC to new PC. Yay me. Pat on the back and all that.
Okay, that being said, I normally have the email spell check everything before sending it. Well this new system did not have the email set up that way from the previous user. So I manually ran the spell check only to find that it wanted to change every word to something funky. What the heck was going on here? So I looked under the hood, so to speak, only to find that the only language available for the spell checker was French! I don’t speak French and don’t send too many emails in French. I need English, any English would do.
A quick search revealed that the missing languages in Outlook Express is known problem with Outlook Express 6 and Microsoft Office 2007. From what I read this happens with upgrades from old office versions to this new one, yet this PC come with the programs installed on it. Apparently, Microsoft has no intention of fixing this and suggests you use a third party spell checker. Maybe an updated Outlook Express is in order, maybe?
Thanks to a very helpful blog post on Outlook Express being stuck on French, I was able to find the information I needed to either get the 3rd party software (they recommend Spell Checker For Outlook Express from Snapfiles). Upon further reading of the comments I saw that I could install/reinstall just the needed Office 2003 Proofing tools, which I did and so far so good. But who knows what tomorrows PC start up will cause. Wish me luck.
Don’t even get me started on their new file formats for Office 2007!
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