When composing emails in Outlook Express no colours are displayed in the email composition window. For example, when sending an email I set the background of the message to grey and the fonts to blue, but my screen only displays the message as black text on a white background. There is nothing wrong with the screen, as colours display properly in other programs, photos and graphics attached to emails are also displayed normally. I have tried everything in the Outlook Express options, but nothing has fixed the problem. The computer is running Windows XP Professional.

There are two possible reasons this problem could occur. First, it is possible that the function to apply formatting to emails (and change the colours within email messages) has become disabled or corrupted, thus Outlook Express does not recognise the formatting in emails. This means that the person who is receiving the emails is not receiving these with the custom formatting, since they are not being composed with any formatting (since your installation of Outlook Express does not recognise formatting). Second, it is possible that all the colour information is contained in the emails, but for some reason the Outlook Express installation on your computer does not display this formatting. In this case, the person who is receiving the emails does receive the emails in their intended colour and formatting, but you cannot see this formatting on your computer due to something being wrong with your installation of Outlook Express.

Dealing with the first scenario whereby the emails are not being composed with any formatting, check whether the emails are being composed in Rich Text (HTML) format or Plain Text format. As the name implies, Plain Text format composes the emails in plain text without any special formatting. In contrast, Rich Text (HTML) format allows for special formatting to be applied to emails (e.g. colours, backgrounds, images) and the email is actually sent as a web page (HTML file) which the receiver can then open and view in their email client. You need to ensure that Outlook Express is sending the emails in Rich Text format. In Outlook Express go to the ‘Tools’ menu > ‘Options’ and click the ‘Send’ tab. Under the ‘Mail Sending Format’ heading make sure ‘HTML’ is enabled and click ‘Apply’ then ‘OK’. Once this has been done, ensure that the emails are being composed in HTML format. Open a new email window, and go to the ‘Format’ menu and make sure ‘Rich Text (HTML)’ is enabled. You should now be able to compose an email with formatting and see the formatted email on your screen.

Should the formatting still not display on the computer, it is possible that Outlook Express has somehow become corrupted. So, you can try running the Windows System File checker to scan the Windows system for any corrupt or missing files, and replace these with known good copies of the files. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Run’ and type ’sfc /scannow’ (without the quotes) and click OK. Once the SFC utility has finished operations it will exit silently with no user feedback, at which time you know it has completed. Restart the computer and check whether the problem persists.

Now turning to the second scenario where the emails are being sent with the formatting, but your installation of Outlook Express is not displaying the formatted emails. One possible cause is that Outlook Express and Internet Explorer have been configured to ignore particular text and colour formatting on web pages. Since Rich Text emails are sent in HTML (web page) format, this setting is also being applied to HTML emails. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Control Panel’ and open the ‘Internet Options’ control panel (you may need to first click on the ‘Network and Internet Connections’ category). In the Internet Options window that appears, click the ‘General’ tab and the ‘Accessibility’ button at the bottom of the window. In the Accessibility window that appears, make sure the following options are disabled:

• Ignore colors specified on webpages
• Ignore font styles specified on webpages
• Ignore font sizes specified on webpages
• Format documents using my style sheet

If any of these settings are enabled they could potentially be overriding the display of formatting in emails (and also web pages which you are visiting through Internet Explorer). Once you are finished click OK and then OK again to save and close the settings. Restart the computer, and check whether the problem persists.

Should the formatting still not display properly, you could next try re-registering a system file which Outlook Express uses to display messages, and then also reset the font encoding in Internet Explorer. Close Outlook Express and then go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Run’ and type ‘regsvr32 inetcomm.dll’ and click OK. A message should appear informing that ‘DllRegisterServer in inetcomm.dll succeeded’. Click OK. Next, open Internet Explorer and go to the ‘View’ menu > ‘Encoding’ and ensure that ‘Western European (ISO)’ is the enabled option. Once this has been done, start Outlook Express to see whether the problem has been resolved.

All else failing, there are two final options you could pursue to fix the problem in either of the above scenarios. First, you could switch to a different email client program. The program which I recommend is Mozilla Thunderbird (www.mozilla.org/thunderbird), a free and very good email client. You should be able to automatically transfer all your emails and the address book from Outlook Express to Thunderbird, should you decide to proceed with this option. However, if you wish to stay with Outlook Express the next option you could consider is reinstalling Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. This is a relatively involved procedure, given the large degree of integration between Internet Explorer/Outlook Express and Windows XP. There is a comprehensive Microsoft Knowledge Base article (support.microsoft.com/?kbid=318378) which details the reinstallation procedure should you wish to pursue this potential fix for the problem.