Recently I upgraded to Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus and found that the spell check function in Outlook Express no longer works. Can you help restore this functionality? The computer is running Windows XP.

Unfortunately on upgrading to Office 2007 or 2010 the spell-checker files used in these newer versions of Office are incompatible with Outlook Express and will not work. However, there are a few options available to tackle this issue. First, you could upgrade from Outlook Express to Windows Live Mail (explore.live.com/windows-live-mail-xp). Windows Live Mail is the new (renamed) version of Outlook Express which is included with Windows 7 and offers various enhancements above the older Outlook Express software that has been included with Windows XP. Another possibility is that because you have Microsoft Office installed on your computer you could change to using Microsoft Outlook as your email client. Outlook is a much more feature-packed and capable email client than the light-weight Outlook Express and includes features such as calendaring, tasks, advanced contacts amongst other things. If you are a heavy email user then you will likely find Outlook to have a more rich set of features. Finally, if you would prefer to do something completely different then you could switch email clients and install a product such Mozilla Thunderbird (www.mozilla.com/thunderbird). Thunderbird is a free, open-source email client which has lots of advance features while remaining relatively light-weight and easy to use. If you are looking for a similar product to Outlook Express then Thunderbird is definitely worth a look.

Of course, if you would like to stay with Outlook Express then there are various free third-party spell-checkers which you could install and will work with Outlook Express. While I have not used any of these spell-checkers, many users have reported that they are good and work well. You can find many of these spell-checkers by searching Google for “Outlook Express spell check” (without the quotes). As always, before running any third-party programs or installers on your computer ensure that they come from a reputable source and scan the packages for any viruses or malware. If you are particularly concerned about such aspects then I suggest that before installing any packages (not just the spell-checks, but in general) that you Google search the name of the package that you intend to install to see whether any adverse results are returned. If not, then this gives additional credibility (although not absolute certainty) that the package being installed should be legitimate and not cause harm.