How to get a completely fresh re-install of OL 2003

[WAB]

OS is Win7 and I have Office 2003 installed. I have been experience a number of problems with OL 2003 (using Unicode format) and not sure what caused them. I can't archive or import - get the dreaded "messaging interface has been getting an unknown error" or an error telling me I am trying to archive to a non-unicode file (strange since it is creating the archive.pst!!!). If I try to open old archive files OL fails, closes and reopens. Ran scanpst and it didn't help. Created several new profiles and they all failed the same way. Tried "detect and repair" - no help. Decided to uninstall OL using original installation disk, rebooted and then installed OL - no help. Completely uninstalled Office and scrubbed the registry, deleted all caches and trash and ran the MS Office "fixit" tool then rebooted. Installed Office 2003 again. Still the same problems and I even got back all of the old tool bars and changes to the tool bars that I made. Now have another problem because OL won't hold onto changes I made to the view (e.g. reading pane on the bottom). When I close and reopen, it is back to where it was before I customized. Also, if I have Word open when OL is open and close the .doc file it tells me there has been a change to normal.dot.

All I really want to do is a completely fresh install of OL (or all of Office if necessary) so none of the old stuff is there (tool bars, add-ons, etc.) and I can start from the beginning. Does ANYONE know how to do that??? Failing that, would you suggest that I spring for Office 2010? I was hoping to wait for the next one.

All help greatly appreciated.

[jscher2000]

If changes to Views are not saved, you may want to create a new PST and then copy or import your mail, contact, and appointments into it. If you rename the default outlook.pst to something like badoutlook.pst, then restart Outlook, I think it will let you create a new blank PST. You then should be able to attach badoutlook.pst using File > Open > Outlook Data File.

In some versions of Outlook, having "Read only" on a PST caused problems in Outlook, so it's worth checking that if you copied them from read-only media such as a CD.

[jscher2000]

If changes to Views are not saved, you may want to create a new PST and then copy or import your mail, contact, and appointments into it. If you rename the default outlook.pst to something like badoutlook.pst, then restart Outlook, I think it will let you create a new blank PST. You then should be able to attach badoutlook.pst using File > Open > Outlook Data File.

In some versions of Outlook, having "Read only" on a PST caused problems in Outlook, so it's worth checking that if you copied them from read-only media such as a CD.

[WAB]

Thanks for the response. Seems that this week's Win7 updates (installed last night) fixed something because many of the problems seem to have settled down. I can Archive and views are sticking. I haven't tried to import yet but will soon. I'm still wondering what you have to do to get an absolutely clean install of OL or Office 2003. No matter what I did I still managed to get some tool bar remnants, etc. In any case, thanks again.