Installing IE8 *properly* shouldn't have had any effect whatsoever on OE,
Andrea.

My personal recommendations include:

= Install IE8 manually, not via Windows Update/Automatic Updates!!

= Uninstall all third-party toolbars (e.g., Google; Yahoo; Windows Live)
and third-party Windows Themes before installing IE8.

= Close all open applications (i.e., anything with a taskbar icon) before
installing or uninstalling IE8.

= I would strongly recommend disabling your anti-virus application and any
anti-spyware application's "system protections" (other than Defender's)
before installing (or uninstalling) an IE upgrade. If you're running a
third-party firewall, I would recommend disabling it and then enabling the
Windows Firewall before installing (or uninstalling) an IE upgrade.

= Create a Restore Point manually before installing IE8. [Do NOT use
System Restore to remove/uninstall IE8; instead, see
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957700. Then use the Restore Point prior to
reinstalling IE8 per these recommendations. Norton users will need to see
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/symantecdoc1.html.]

= Reboot twice after installing or uninstalling IE8.

= For best chance of success with IE8, make certain that your anti-virus
application, any anti-spyware applications (other than Defender), and your
third-party firewall (if any) are supported in IE8 Final before you decide
install it.

====================
General OE Caveats for best reliability:

- Don't use Inbox or Sent Items to archive messages. Move them to local
folders created for this purpose.

- Empty Deleted Items folder daily.

- Frequently perform a manual compact of all OE folders while "working
offline". More at http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm

- Do not cancel Automatic Compacting, should it occur, and do not attempt to
close OE via Task Manager or shutdown your machine if Automatic Compacting
is taking place.

- Disable email scanning by your anti-virus application. It can cause
corruption (i.e., loss of messages) and provides no additional protection:

Why you don't need your anti-virus to scan your email
http://thundercloud.net/infoave/tuto...ning/index.htm

--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Client - since 2002


Andrea wrote:
Thanks for the link, but everything else besides OE wasn't normal. The
upgraded IE8 loaded extremely slowly and then took another 3 or so minutes
to connect to the Internet. I didn't notice this at first because IE isn't
my default browser. I also noticed that CPU usage increased, sometimes to
100%, when I opened OE or anything else. And when I opened MS Word, I kept
getting an error about the printer not responding even though I wasn't
trying to print. I didn't notice all of this right away. I ended up
calling
MS today, which is offering free support around IE8 until December. They
suggested that I uninstall IE8 and revert to IE7, which they helped me to
do, and this solved all the above problems. There's most likely a conflict
with one or more programs on my computer, but that would take a lot of
time
and effort to figure out. I use IE so rarely that it didn't seem important
to upgrade right now.

PA Bear [MS MVP] wrote:
Start he http://www.insideoe.com/problems/performance.htm

Andrea wrote:
Since upgrading to IE8, it takes several minutes for Outlook Express
to open
and then another 2 or 3 minutes to open an email or newsgroup post
that's already downloaded to my hard drive. Is there a conflict? If
so, any solutions? Thanks.