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Uninstalling or upgrading Windows Live Photo Gallery may cause Windows Live Mail or Internet Explorer 8 to fail

Article ID: 969148 - View products that this article applies to.

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Symptoms

When you use Windows Live Mail and Internet Explorer 8, you may encounter either of the following behaviors:

You try to send a rich text e-mail by using Windows Live Mail, and you receive an error message:
The message could not be sent. An error has occurred.
You try to open a new news post by using Windows Live Mail, and you receive the following error message:
There was an error opening this message. An error has occurred.

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Windows Live Mail has depends on Internet Explorer for a variety of its functions, including e-mail and posting to newsgroups. If the installation of Internet Explorer is damaged or if Internet Explorer is not installed correctly, then Windows Live Mail may not be work correctly. In that case, Windows Live Mail displays an error message informing the user that the e-mail or new news post could not be sent.

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Resolution

There are two methods that you can use to resolve this issue. You can uninstall and then reinstall Windows Live Essentials, or you can change the registry.

Method 1: Uninstall and then reinstall Windows Live Essentials

You can uninstall and then reinstall of Windows Live Essentials. To do this, visit the following Web site and download the latest version of the Windows Live Essentials installer:

Download Windows Live Essentials Now

(http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29219)

Method 2: Change the registry

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322756

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/ )

How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

To resolve the issue, change a registry key, as appropriate for the operating system of your computer.

For x86 operating systems

For x86 operating systems, do the following steps:

Click Start
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, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then click regedit.exe in the Programs list.
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If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue . Then, click OK.
Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\Microsoft\internet explorer\version vector
In the Data field for IE, type 8. 0000, and then click OK.
Exit Registry Editor.

For x64 operating systems

For x64 operating systems, do the following steps:

Click Start
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, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then click regedit.exe in the Programs list.
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If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue . Then, click OK.
Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\internet explorer\version vector
In the Data field for IE, type 8. 0000, and then click OK.
Exit Registry Editor.