OWA doesn't work on Vista and Windows 7

Last reviewed on June 27, 2012

A reader asks:

I upgraded to Vista and use OWA to access my email. I can read emails fine but when I try to reply to a message, the message body is not editable, it's blank. Do you know what's wrong and how to fix it?

After logging on, I try to send an email. After the subject line, I cannot tab down to the dialogue box, due to a red x in the left corner of the dialogue box. I also get a script error in Internet Explorer with the following error message, "errors on this web page might cause it to work incorrectly. tbContentElement.DOM is null or not an object, frm_composenote.js, Code:0, Line 195 Char:1 cannot forward, reply or construct an email.

The problem occurs because the dhtml text editor control used by OWA is not supported in Vista and your Exchange administrators aren't patching the servers in a timely manner. There is a hotfix your administrator should install on the Exchange server that will fix this and a similar issue that affects Windows XP users who've installed the security patch described in MS06-013. The hotfix installs a new editor for Internet Explorer which uses an iframe instead of an ActiveX control.

For more information and links to the necessary hotfixes for Exchange 2000 and 2003, see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/911829.

MS06-013: Cumulative security update for Internet Explorer (July 2006)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912812

Written by

Diane Poremsky
A Microsoft Outlook Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 1999 and involved in IT support since 1985, Diane is the author of several books and video training CDs and online training classes for Microsoft Outlook. You can find her helping people online in Outlook Forums as well as in the Microsoft Answers and TechNet forums.