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What a great idea, I did not think of that!
I will check that out tomorrow!!!
Thanks a Million

Joe,
Yes, I did (actually twice – on two different days just to be sure), thanks for that idea too.

Yes, all updates have been installed, yes on the remove check, reboot and retry. I also have removed and recreated the profile and then even uninstalled, manually cleaned up and reinstalled Office 2003.
It seems something is in the registry that I am missing.
Thanks for the ideas.

Resolution:
Uninstall Office – DO NOT REBOOT
Uninstall Business Contact Manage (if applicable)
Uninstall old copies of Office if applicable (that was not my case)
Open the Registry
Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER / Software / Microsoft
Delete the “Office” folder – everything in it, yes, the entire folder.
now navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / Software / Microsoft
Delete the “Office” folder – everything in it, yes, this entire folder too.
Exit the registry
Open “Computer” and navigate to C:|Program Files delete the folder “Microsoft Office”
Now reboot
Reinstall Office

No, they still do not work and I cannot create anything new (email, documents …)
I have called MS and been bounced around to the same areas in an endless loop (literally 4x through the circle).
As a MS registered partner I thought I could get somewhere but I have not bee able to.

OK, Uninstalled, Manually removed opa12.dat. Rebooted, ran disk clean and then defrag. Reinstalled Office being sure it only installed Small Bus (it tried to also install Access but the COA is for Small Bus). Opened Word. Did not ask for activation, went to the activation button inside Word, Clicked on it and nothing.
Ran Windows updates. It wants to install Office 2k3 SP3 (Why? 2k3 was never on this PC), SQL Express SP2, 2k7 SP-1, Bus Contact Mgr update and Outlook Junk Mail update.
Did not ask for Activation for any of this.
I am not going to run the updates just yet.

I tried a few more “things” all without results. So I am uninstalling now. I am going to also (after the uninstall) manually remove the opa12.dat file.
Of course a OEM reinstall of Office 2k7 is no fun.

That is the funny thing. I have had it since we built the machine as a Vista demo in August. It does appear that the “Activation” was “lost” somehow. The problem is now when I try to activate by any of the normal means nothing happens.
I click on the Activate button and nothing pops up. I installed the “Activation Assistant” and it only opens Word, I have to manually go to the Activate section. I click on it and nothing.
I built the machine (I am an OEM reseller) and even though I have sold darn few copies of 2k7, none to my knowledge just lost their activation, one or two people tried the trial versions and then claimed to have “bought” the software but in this case, I built the machine, installed Vista Ultimate and Office 2k7 back in August.
With XP you could get a phone number to call for activation assistance, any idea how to pull one up in Vista / Office 2k7?
I logged on my Microsoft partner site and so far have found nothing on this issue.
As a matter of fact I am not receiving emails so I am needing to manually check on this post (no big deal).

BTW I tried the following which is supposed to delete the Avtivation file, and I still get the same. No Activation ever appears.

In Windows Vista, the Opa12.dat file is stored in a different location than in earlier versions of Windows. To delete this file, you must first configure hidden folders to be visible. To do this, follow these steps: 1. Click Start, and then click Computer.
2. On the Organize menu, click Folder and Search Options.
3. On the View tab, click Show hidden files and folders, and then click OK.
To delete the Opa12.dat file, follow these steps: 1. Click Start. In the Search box, type %programdata%, and then press ENTER.
2. Double-click the Microsoft folder.
3. Double-click the Office folder.
4. Double-click the Data folder, right-click the Opa12.dat file in that folder, and then click Delete.
Important Do not delete the Opa12.bak file.
5. Close the Windows Explorer window.
6. Start a 2007 Office program to start the 2007 Office Activation Wizard.

Thank you. I did double-check this and then I double-checked my double-check. It is/was already selected.
I appreciate the advice.

HansV, I saw your post before I even posted here. I do use those programs so I removed them (and they are still removed) but the problem persist. I also turned Word off and HTML and set Outlook to open in the “personal folders” all to no avail.
Because none of this worked I decided to…
1. Backup Outlook to “My Documents”
2. Rename Outlook.pst to Outlook1.pst
3. Uninstall Office
4. Move Outlook1.pst to “C:”
5. Reboot the PC and reinstall Office.
When I opened Outlook for the first time, even though it could not find the PST it remembered all the email info.
Why?

Thanks for the idea. On three of the machines it was either a complete fresh install of Windows and Office with the old data imported or an “upgrade” from Outlook Express with a fresh install of Office.

Stand alone.
Sorry for the delay, the site has been “unavaliable” to me for a very long time.

About the Server software, I am using the full version of Windows 2003 server not the Small Business Server.
Don’t forget though, that this issue of loosing Outlook data was on the individual PC’s because the network was Peer-to-Peer. Every PC was Windows XP Pro SP-1 or SP-2.
The profile data was not (and actually is still not) on the server.
They use a third part for the mail server that is located off site, and no data is stored. It is a simple POP3 setup.

About the Server software, I am using the full version of Windows 2003 server not the Small Business Server.
Don’t forget though, that this issue of loosing Outlook data was on the individual PC’s because the network was Peer-to-Peer. Every PC was Windows XP Pro SP-1 or SP-2.
The profile data was not (and actually is still not) on the server.
They use a third part for the mail server that is located off site, and no data is stored. It is a simple POP3 setup.

What I did was first create a new profile and then go under c:Documents and Settingsusername and performed a “Move” of everything (in some cases I did a copy) to the new profile.
Then after checking the network and the shared file server information I deleted the old profile (I know it was a major no-no but I had been there 12 hours already and just plain old did not think).
Anyway when you delete a profile the the Administrations and Users section it asks if you want to keep the old profile data, I chose “Yes”.
So I expected the data in Outlook since it was under the profile to be there but the only folders moved were “My Documents” and “Settings” and in some cases (but not all “User Data” but no others. In other words the “Hidden” folders did not move. EVEN THOUGH when I did the “Move” or “Copy” command there was a pop up stating “There are x number of hidden files do you want to move them too?” I very specifically selected “Yes”.
As a backup to my “Move” I chose the “Keep Files” when I deleted the profile and again it only kept “My Documents”, “Settings” and “User Data” in some cases but nothing more.