[snowmonkey]

Hey Kathy,

Welcome to this corner of the web
You said you have backed-up everything.....How did you do that ? what program did you use ?

I don't understand that last part of your post, why did you try to reinstall Outlook Express ? Basically, all you need to do is to copy the files you need from the backup [I assume is a CD] to your hard drive and then [this is very important] change the property of the file and remove the "READ ONLY" option from the file....when a file is copied from a backup CD to a Hard drive it will carry the property of the file with it, which is Read Only...that's why you need to change that.

Keep us informed with your progress.

Cheers