I was trying to make some space on my hard-drive on my home confuter, because it’s full.
Because I’m a confuter-illeterate moron, I deleted outlook express & my CD player (yes, I know a CD player is hardware and not soft ware, but the confuter can’t find it anymore).
Anyone have any thoughts as to how I can get these things back? I recognize that this is sort of a long shot…
FWIW - I tried to download outlook from the MSN site but dont’ know what the hell I’m looking for. (If I did, I wouldn’t have deleted it in the first place).
If you have your Windows installation CD, you can reinstall them that way. Otherwise, you should be able to get it from the MS website. If you can’t find them there, which version of Windows are you using? I, or someone else, can find it for you.
If you have your CD, just pop it in. A screen will come up with some choices, one of which will be to add or remove windows components. That’s the one you want. If you’re using 2000 (or ME?) and up, Outlook Express is bundled with Internet Explorer, so reinstalling that will restore OE.
In that case, download the standalone installer for OE 6.0 here. I couldn’t find it on the MS site–it was all bundled with IE.
There are a whole bunch of freeware CD playing programs available, that are generally far better than the Windows version. Try Download.com–they might even have the Windows accessory, if you prefer it.
BTW, I concur about reinstalling or repairing IE to get Outlook Express back.
Try doing a repair install of Internet Explorer from the Add/Remove Programs first. It will give you an option of repairing IE or restoring to a previous configuration… choose the Repair option. I’ve done it before and I don’t think I’ve ever been prompted for the media (CD or download location).
If for some reason it does prompt you for the CD, you can always download IE from Microsoft:
One additional thought: did you check your Recycle Bin? If you deleted the file manually, but you never emptied the Bin, it’s still in there. Open the Recycle Bin, and if you see it there, you can left-click on it and select Restore to put it back where it belongs.