Live Mail has for no apparent reason stopped displaying the body of emails in both the reading pane and in the "opened" mail item - instead displaying an .htl icon linking to a browser version of the message and/or a .txt icon linking to a text file.  These objects cannot be linked to directly but only saved and then opened from that location.

Attempts to remedy by upgrading Windows Essential, repairing the program, restarting Windows and reconfiguring the mail accounts all failed to solve the problem.  Prior to this problem, the inability to open attachments without first "saving" symptom had appeared.  Also, Live Mail had become increasingly SLOW to load and to move between mail items by either "up/down" commands or "delete" function.

After the reinstall, repair, and re-boot, invoking Live Mail took many minutes and the attempt to display the first mail item in the reading pane took several minutes before apparently "timing out" to the icon-only display.  Any attempt to do anything else in Live Mail during this waiting time rendered the program "not responding".

Help!!??!!