cannot set default language in windows live mail

Some time last week I discovered my spell checker was no longer functioning and the option was grayed out.  After going through the options a couple of times I realized that English was no longer showing as the default language. Nothing was showing as the default language so when I tried to set English as the default Live Mail froze and all I could do was close the program. This happened several times so I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Essentials with no success.  The spell check function works fine in Word and English is the default in langselector so I am completely stumped. What's even more bizarre is that  this is happening on both of my Windows 7 machines.  Any help would be greatly apreciated.