Vista - Vista Home Premium/ Windows Mail and MS Outlook woes

Good Afternoon,

I hope someone can help; I'm at wit's end.

I'm using a 2 year old Dell Desktop Dimension E520 computer with Windows Vista Home Premium.

A few days ago, Windows Mail all of the sudden stopped working. I could not open it. I rec'd an error message saying something to the effect that Windows could not find C:\programfiles\windows mail\winmail.exe. There was another message but I didn't write it down. I did all of the usual things: restarted my computer, turned it off for awhile and turned it back on, etc. with no luck. I ended up installing Windows Live Mail so at least I have access. Does anyone know how I can get my regular Windows Mail program back?

My next problem is with MS Office- Outlook (2007 Small Business Version). Because I was having so many problems with Windows Mail I thought that I'd simply use the Outlook instead. Turns out that doesn't work either! Some times it tells me it hadn't shut down correctly the last time and asks if I should start in safe mode....which it still doesn't work. Other times it just simply stops working ...even before it gets started. And now I get another message asking me if I want to add an Outlook connector account...and no matter which answer I choose it does nothing. I tried restarting...repairing...and even uninstalling/reinstalling MS Office and nothing works.

Any ideas?

Thanks !