Microsoft Outlook email - Outlook 2000 reinstall

Last week, I suddenly lost the ability to send/receive mail in outlook
2000 (on a windows me platform). A message popped up that said "function
failed" or something like that. All other functions of the program
(calendar, reading messages, etc.) appeared fine.
So, I used my Office 2000 professional CD to "repair" Office. During the
final few minutes, I get errors saying certain ODBC drivers cannot be
located. I had the "ignore" option, so I used it. The "repair" finished.
I can still access word, powerpoint, and excel, but not outlook. The
program opens (I can even see my folder structure load in the
background", and the message that the OLE registration failed, and I
need to reinstall Outlook 2000.
Which I do, with the same results/

Now, the ODBC drivers that the install can't find are localed right on
the install disk, AND, the are in fact in windows/common files/

I even tried the MDAC 2.8 install (which actually told me that I didn't
need it because it was already there).

outlook appears to be the only program that the /regserver does not work
with.

Do I have to uninstall office or at least outlook and then reinstall?

The original Office install was done while the machine had win98SE on
it, and then I upgraded to ME a few years after. I wondering if there
is something that is on my machine from when office was added that was
moved or rendered moot by the windows me upgrade?

Thanks in advance