I'm not sure if I've come into the right sub category ... Hopefully yes !

Two days ago, I began having problems with 1. Excel 2. Outlook
I have a feeling both are connected.

When I try and open Excel, I receive the following response :
Please wait while Windows configures Microsoft Office XP Professional with
Front Page.
Followed by : The feature you are trying to use is on a CD-ROM or other
removable disk that is not available.
This again is followed by Error 1706.

I don't have the discs.

Subsequently, when I go into Outlook and compose email, I click on one of my
accounts to send the email. Where I would normally see a list of my
accounts,
the response I receive is :
Microsoft Word : Unable to complete the operation. A fatal error has
occured.

I realised that something has changed, perhaps without my knowledge.

I tried to restore my settings for the previous day.

1. The Help function is disabled.
2. When I try to do this via System Accesories, The egg timer momentarily
appears then disappears without the application opening.
3. I have also checked System in the Control Panel and under System Restore,
the Turn off system restore box is unchecked. Under status is states :
Monitoring - That's it
4. On boot up, there are no dates stored so there isn't anything to scroll
down to

I'm just so stuck. I have so much information stored on Excel and of course,
Outlook is a problem.

Any ideas?

Thanks