This behavior may occur when certain registry values are missing in the Microsoft Windows Registry. To resolve this problem, follow the steps in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 830914.

For the Send button to be available, you must have an e-mail account set up in your Outlook profile. You may have chosen not to add an e-mail account when you installed Outlook or canceled the new account wizard.

After you set up an e-mail account, the Send button will be available.

Outlook is checking names, and you are accepting the addresses with the green wavy underlines without verifying them.

MSN Internet Access version 5.3 or earlier accounts were set up with POP3 (POP3: A common protocol that is used to retrieve e-mail messages from an Internet e-mail server.) e-mail accounts. MSN Explorer accounts use HTTP e-mail accounts. Older accounts may be migrated to newer HTTP accounts. For assistance in determining which type of e-mail account you use, contact MSN support.

In the Folder List (Folder List: Displays the folders available in your mailbox. To view subfolders, click the plus sign (+) next to the folder. If the Folder List is not visible, on the Go menu, click Folder List.), click Drafts, and then double-click the message.

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click E-Mail Options.
2. Clear the Automatically save unsent messages check box.

The default e-mail editor for Outlook is Microsoft Word. When you are in an open message in Microsoft Outlook, if you type a question in the Type a question for help box, you get Help about Microsoft Word. If you want Help about Outlook, such as a topic about how to address a message, in the Outlook Navigation Pane, click Inbox to switch back to Outlook, and then type a question in the Type a question for help box.

The background you see in the message may not be stationery. It may be a Microsoft Word theme that doesn't have an equivalent stationery in Microsoft Outlook and therefore can't be saved.

• Before you use Microsoft Word to compose a message, close any Word dialog boxes that you are not using.
• If you use Microsoft Word as your e-mail editor, you should have at least 128 megabytes (MB) of memory available. To select which e-mail editor you use, click the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Mail Format tab. Then, select or clear the Use Microsoft Word to edit e-mail messages check box.
• Programs that work in the background, such as virus-scanning programs, might slow down Microsoft Word. Use System Monitor— an optional Microsoft Windows accessory program— to see whether you are running programs that slow down your computer's performance and to see which program uses the highest percentage of processor time.
• If you use Remote Mail, you can screen messages by reviewing the message headers (message header: Summary information that you download to your computer to determine whether to download, copy, or delete the entire message from the server. The header includes these fields: Subject, From, Received, Importance, Attachment, and Size.) before you download the complete messages.
• If you use offline folders and typically synchronize all folders, try to synchronize only the folders you need. Also, because the Deleted Items folder is automatically updated, empty it before you synchronize the folders. To empty the Deleted Items folder automatically when you quit Microsoft Outlook, click the Tools menu, click Options, click the Other tab, and then select the Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting check box.
• Notifications can slow down the speed at which you receive messages.

• If you use a modem, make sure dial-up networking options are set correctly. You must have a modem, an e-mail account (e-mail account: The server name, user name, password, and e-mail address used by Outlook to connect to an e-mail service. You create the e-mail account in Outlook by using information provided by your administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).), and a phone line to send and receive e-mail messages. For information, see Microsoft Windows Help.
• The server you use may not be available. Wait and try again later, or see your administrator.
• The settings for your e-mail account might not match what your Internet service provider (ISP: A business that provides access to the Internet for such things as electronic mail, chat rooms, or use of the World Wide Web. Some ISPs are multinational, offering access in many locations, while others are limited to a specific region.) requires. For example, you may have mistyped the name of your server or e-mail address. Also, most Internet (Internet: A worldwide network of thousands of smaller computer networks and millions of commercial, educational, government, and personal computers. The Internet is like an electronic city with virtual libraries, stores, art galleries, and so on.) addresses and connection settings are case-sensitive. Make sure settings are capitalized correctly. For information about checking your server settings, see Microsoft Windows Help.
• If you receive an Internet e-mail message that was delayed, you can look at the list of transactions for the message over the Internet, such as the time the message arrived at each location on its route. Open the message you want to view the Internet headers for, click the View menu, and then click Options.
• If you used another e-mail program in the past, some of your settings may not have been imported properly, or you may have renamed your account.
• If your mail server is not responding, you may want to increase the amount of time Microsoft Outlook tries to connect.

• Your picture may be too large for your mail server or for the recipient's mailbox. Attachments are converted into a special format for e-mail messages. When you send attachments over the Internet (Internet: A worldwide network of thousands of smaller computer networks and millions of commercial, educational, government, and personal computers. The Internet is like an electronic city with virtual libraries, stores, art galleries, and so on.), these attachments can be considerably larger than the original file size. Some mail servers will only send or receive messages under a certain size limit. Check with your system administrator or Internet service provider (ISP) (ISP: A business that provides access to the Internet for such things as electronic mail, chat rooms, or use of the World Wide Web. Some ISPs are multinational, offering access in many locations, while others are limited to a specific region.).

• You may not have permission to open the folder. See the folder owner or your administrator.
• The server the shared folder is on may not be available. Wait and try again later, or see your administrator.
• If you are a delegate (delegate: Someone granted permission to open another person's folders, create items, and respond to requests for that person. The person granting delegate permission determines the folders the delegate can access and the changes the delegate can make.), you may not have permission. Ask the person who granted you delegate access to perform the following steps to verify the permissions granted to you: On the Tools menu, point to Options, and then click the Delegates tab. In the list, click the delegate's name, and then click Permissions.

• You may have a filter on that hides some or all of the items (item: An item is the basic element that holds information in Outlook (similar to a file in other programs). Items include e-mail messages, appointments, contacts, tasks, journal entries, notes, posted items, and documents.) in the folder. If there is a filter on the active folder, the words "Filter Applied" appear in the status bar (status bar: A horizontal bar at the bottom of the screen that displays information about the current condition of the program, such as the status of items in the window, the progress of the current task, or information about the selected item.). To remove a filter, click the View menu, point to Arrange By, point to Current View, click Customize Current View, click Filter, and then click Clear All.
• Grouped items might be collapsed. To expand groups to show details, click the expand button . To collapse groups to hide details, click the collapse button .
• The item might be in another folder. Check any appropriate folders in Folder List (Folder List: Displays the folders available in your mailbox. To view subfolders, click the plus sign (+) next to the folder. If the Folder List is not visible, on the Go menu, click Folder List.).
• You might have the folder set up to AutoArchive (AutoArchive: To automatically remove items to another folder periodically or delete them, based on the amount of time that they have been in the folder.) items after items reach a certain age. On the Tools menu, click Options, click the Other tab, and then click AutoArchive. If the AutoArchive every check box is selected, the item you want could have been archived. The archive file name appears in the Default archive file box. Once you know the name of your archive file, you can retrieve archived items.

• You may have accessed your mail from a computer other than your main one, and the other computer had AutoArchive enabled. In that case, Microsoft Outlook may have archived the mail to the Personal Folders file (.pst) (Personal Folders file (.pst): Data file that stores your messages and other items on your computer. You can assign a .pst file to be the default delivery location for e-mail messages. You can use a .pst to organize and back up items for safekeeping.) file on the other computer.

• If you changed where messages are sent from and received, you might be looking in the wrong Inbox.
• If you are working offline, the folder might not be set up for offline use or might not have been synchronized.
• If you have any rules set up, the message could have been automatically moved or deleted.

• If you use offline folders or Remote Mail, you must use different commands to send and receive messages.
• If you open a message in the Outbox, or edit it and then save changes, the message is not sent. Open the message, and then click Send. Messages waiting to be sent are formatted in italic in the Outbox.
• You may have specified that messages not be sent until the next send/receive. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Mail Setup tab. Select the Send messages immediately when connected check box. A message is sent when you click Send in the message. If you connect using a LAN (LAN: A computer network technology designed to connect computers separated by a short distance. A local area network (LAN) can be connected to the Internet and can also be configured as an intranet.), messages are sent in the background. If you use a dial-up networking connection, Microsoft Outlook tries to connect to the server (server: On a local area network, a computer that controls access to all or part of the network and its resources, such as printers. On the World Wide Web, a computer running Web server software that responds to HTTP protocol requests. Also called a host.) after you click Send in a message.
• If you are using Cached Exchange Mode, you may have chosen to work offline and have no send/receive group settings configured to periodically connect to the Exchange server. If you are working offline, the status bar will display Offline. On the File menu, click Work Offline to return all accounts in the profile on online, or on the File menu, click Connect to Microsoft Exchange Server to reconnect the Exchange Server account only.

• If you are prompted to specify a user profile (user profile: Settings that define customization preferences for a particular user, as well as personalized files such as custom dictionaries and AutoCorrect lists. The operating system uses these settings to configure your computer when you log on.) each time to start Outlook, and want to use one profile routinely, you can specify that one profile is used each time you start Outlook.
• If you are prompted to decide whether to connect to the server or to work offline and you always prefer one method over the other, you can set up one method for use all the time. On the Tools menu, click E-mail Accounts, select View or change existing e-mail accounts, click Next, select the Microsoft Exchange Server, click Change, click More Settings, and then select Automatically detect connection state.

• If you receive an Internet (Internet: A worldwide network of thousands of smaller computer networks and millions of commercial, educational, government, and personal computers. The Internet is like an electronic city with virtual libraries, stores, art galleries, and so on.) e-mail message that was delayed, you can look at the list of transactions for the message over the Internet, such as the time the message arrived at each location on its route. Open the message you want to view the Internet headers for, click the View menu, and then click Options.
• If recipients of your messages over the Internet receive an attachment called WinMail.dat, you sent messages to them that included Microsoft Exchange Rich Text formatting, such as bold or italic text, but the recipients do not use a program that can read this format. To select what message format you use, click the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Mail Format tab. Select an option in the Send in this message format box.

Installing other messaging software after installing Microsoft Outlook can cause problems. If you see a message that says that your Mapi32.dll file is corrupt or the wrong version, you can fix it by running a program in the Microsoft Windows System Directory.

• In C:\winnt\system32 or C:\windows\system32 double-click Fixmapi.exe to run the program.