I have just updated to Win 98 Second Edition from Win 98. The Second
Edition update automatically installed IE 5 and Outlook Express 5. Now
whenever I try to spell check an e-mail in Outlook Express I immediately
get the message, "An error occurred while spelling was being checked."

Both Outlook Express 5 and the preceding Outlook Express 4 utilize the
spell checking program from Microsoft Office 95 which is installed on my
machine. But, OE 4 never had a problem with spell checking under Windows 95
or 98.

The OE 5  problem and solution is well documented in Microsoft's
<http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q224/1/76.ASP> article
which I have tried to follow. My "play about with registry" expertise is a
bit weak so I'd appreciate some help.

To get to the problem area of the Registry, I use regedit to open the key
path from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ down to Software\ to Microsoft\ to Shared
Tools.

There I am "to verify that the SharedFilesDir value has a value data with a
trailing backslash in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Shared
Tools" registry key.

The article continues, "For example, the SharedFilesDir value should
contain the following value data: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft
Shared\ "

Under Shared Tools I cannot locate a SharedFilesDir.

Neither does it appear when I click on Shared Tools to show the values in
the right panel. All that does show is a logo, [Default] and [value not set].

However, under the following Shared Tools Location key[?] the value data
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ does appear.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I love my Eudora but I would
still like to have full utilization of Outlook Express.

Thanks in advance,

Peter Darrach

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