In my 60's, was helping friend in 70's. Knew just enough to cause problem. Friend wanted his computer cleaned up and to have word processing capabilities. He had no clue how he was getting email. Told me Outlook Express but that program didn't show up in programs list in control panel. I thought he was remembering wrong since his very old PC died a few months ago and it had an older version of Outlook on it. Friend is having some memory problems. I repeatedly asked how he accessed email. His 15 year old email address is with local ISP. After long discussion involving lots of complaining about technology, I concluded he was using browser to access email. Wrong assumption. Didn't realize he was using Microsoft Live mail and someone had configured pop3 to access his email account.

   Friend hated messenger window in his face every time he turned on computer prompting him for a password. Didn't know password. Kept telling me to "get rid of the damn thing". I uninstalled Microsoft Essentials. Friend didn't need or want instant messaging, blog stuff, video editing, etc. I didn't realize suite included email.

  Frantic call. No email. No contacts. Worried all night. Searched and found this thread.

Windows 7. I installed Office 7 student edition (no Outlook), had legal license because computer I originally installed program on died last year.

  Microsoft Visual C ++ and Office 7 student edition only Microsoft software showing in program listing.

  How do I reinstall Windows Live Essentials without coping over data files?

  Will email be intact? He had several years of email in multiple folders. From reading this site I concluded that email is stored in cloud but contacts are stored local. Is that correct?

   Is there any hope of recovering contacts?

Thank you.