Uninstalling all this stuff is an annoyance, but doesn't take that long. Most of the time, uninstalling all this stuff is all it takes to be able to install the production version of Outlook 2007 on a machine where you previously ran 2007 Microsoft Office beta applications.

But sometimes, the beta applications don't get uninstalled completely, even when you follow the directions in Knowledge Base article 927222.

If you try to install Outlook 2007, and haven't successfully uninstalled everything you must uninstall, the setup program will display the following error message:

If you see this message, you will really need to get your hands dirty to make this upgrade happen. Microsoft Knowledge Base article 928218 provides detailed instructions on how to manually uninstall all 2007 Microsoft Office system components when the usual uninstall procedure fails.

There's no way to sugar coat this. It gets ugly. We're talking temporarily disabling your antivirus software ugly. Manually stopping Windows services ugly. Manually finding and editing Windows registry keys ugly. Take a look at the start of the Knowledge Base article if Figure C and you'll see what we mean.

FIGURE C

The procedures in this Knowledge Base article are not for novices. Click picture for a larger image.

This is not a project you want to undertake casually. When we did it for the one computer in our lab that had this problem, it took about 40 minutes to work through all the steps and successfully upgrade the computer from the beta of Outlook 2007 to the production version.

We hope you never have to go through this, but if you do, set aside plenty of time and take your time. Back up the registry before you start and be sure you know how to restore it if you accidentally blow something up. In fact you might want to use something like Ghost to image your entire drive before you start, so if you do something horribly wrong, you can restore the image and try again.

Good luck!

The bottom line
The bottom line is that if you are a basic Outlook user upgrading from Outlook 2003 to Outlook 2007, you should have no problems. In our limited testing, Microsoft has done a good job of making the upgrade fast and easy.

If, however, you have pumped up your copy of Outlook 2003 with add-ins, you can expect problems with some of those add-ins, at least until the publishers come out with versions that are specifically designed to work with Outlook 2007.

Finally, if you have been experimenting with the beta versions of the 2007 Microsoft Office system or related tools and want to upgrade your test machine, things could get rough. It's a perfect example of why you should run beta programs in a test environment and not in production.

Michelle LaBrosse is the founder and Chief Cheetah of Cheetah Learning. In 2006, the Project Management Institute selected Michelle as one of the 25 most influential women in project management, one of only two women selected from the training and education industry. Michelle is a graduate of the Harvard Business School's Owner & President Management program for entrepreneurs, and is the author of Cheetah Project Management and Cheetah Negotiations. To contact Michelle and learn more about Cheetah Learning, visit http://www.cheetahlearning.com.