How to Repair Your Office or Outlook Installation

Last reviewed on March 22, 2012

Outlook 2007

Office diagnostics will repair some problems but is mostly useless for serious problems, however, you can use it as it does no harm and may fix your problem. just don't get your hopes up - it's not an "end all, be all" solution for all problems plaguing Outlook. Doing a repair is generally better although it takes longer and you may need the Office installation source handy.

Repair Office 2007 Installation

To repair your Office or Outlook installation, open the Control Panel and locate Add or Remove Programs. If you are using Windows 7 Category view of the Control Panel, choose the Uninstall a Program link under Programs category. In all versions of Windows, you can also type add remove programs in the Search field to find Add or Remove Programs.

Locate your Microsoft Office install in the list of installed programs. Select it, then choose Change. If you are using Windows 7, the Change button is above the list of installed programs (as seen in the screenshots for Outlook 2010 on the previous page.)

Use Control panel, add or remove programs to repair Outlook 2007

Choose Repair on the next screen and click Continue.

Repair the Office 2007 installation

Run Office Diagnostics

Expand the Help menu and choose Office Diagnostics to start the Diagnostics wizard.
Outlook 2007 Office Diagnostics menu

The Office Diagnostics wizard opens. Click Continue to begin.
Use Office diagnostics to fix some problems

The next screen shows you everything the diagnostic routine checks. Click Run Diagnostics to begin.
Use Office diagnostics to fix some problems

While the diagnostics are running, the dialog updates with the results:

Office Diagnostics results

Next » Outlook 2003

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.