In some circumstances, you may need to go back to a previous installation of Microsoft® Outlook® after upgrading to Microsoft Office Outlook 2003. To do this, you first remove Outlook 2003, then reinstall your previous version of Outlook. You might also need to recreate your Outlook profile.
You remove Outlook from your deployment by changing your Office installation using the Custom Maintenance Wizard. If you installed Outlook 2003 from an Office CD, you can select Outlook from the list of components and set its feature installation state to Not Available to uninstall it. If you installed Outlook from a stand-alone CD, Outlook 2003 is listed as a separate product that you can remove.
To remove Outlook 2003 by using the Custom Maintenance Wizard
- In the Custom Maintenance Wizard, enter the MSI file for Office 2003 or Outlook 2003 (depending on whether you installed from the Office CD or from the Outlook stand-alone CD).
- On the Set Feature Installation States page, click the down arrow next to Microsoft Outlook for Windows.
- Select Not Available or Not Available, Hidden, Locked.
- Click Finish to create the CMW file.
- Distribute the CMW file to your users.
When you have removed Outlook 2003, reinstall your previous version of Outlook following the process for your organization.
Outlook 2003 creates a backup copy of existing profiles when it first runs. After you reinstall your previous version of Outlook, the backup profile may work with Outlook just as it did before you upgraded to Outlook 2003.
However, there are a variety of circumstances which make it impossible for Outlook to use the backup profile. Therefore, it is recommended that when you revert to a previous installation of Outlook, you recreate your Outlook profile. For example, POP3 and IMAP e-mail services cannot be used after reverting to a previous Outlook installation. To restore these services, you must create a new profile and add the services.
To recreate your Outlook profile after reinstalling a previous version of Outlook
Any settings that you set in Outlook 2003 will not be retained when you revert to a previous installation of Outlook. Outlook settings will revert to default values or will be set as they were before you installed Outlook 2003 (depending on the setting).