I tried to fix some minor problems and ended up with more major ones - apologies for being a dummy!
I uninstalled Office 2007 with Revo uninstaller selecting to delete all values. I then reinstalled it and seemed to work OK but problem of very slow copying in Excel which had been fixed was still there. I decided to restore registry using Erunt. After that none of Office programs work. Outlook loads but will not function - message 'not implemented' appears if I try to send, reply or anything. I tried to reinstall Office 2007 but it fails. I tried to install a disc version of Office 2003 but it give me a windows installer error message 'This patch could not be installed ....'. I know I have probably made some stupid moves here but please could anyone help to get me out of this fix and get Office working again.
Thank you, Phil

Update: Used Windows Installer cleanup Utility and removed Office references. Tried to reinstall Office 2007. It got further than last time then stopped with 'Microsoft Office 2007 encountered an error during setup' again. However, when I tried to install Office 2003 it seemed to work and I can now view my word docs and excel sheets. Outlook will not start though giving the error message 'Cannot start Office Outlook. MAP132.DLL is corrupt or the wrong version. This could have been caused by installing other messaging software. Please reinstall Outlook. I did a repair from the installation disc but no joy.
I note that the Office 2007 files are still there in the program files in the 'office12' folder.
Also, When I tried to search for the MAP132.DLL file the Search window came up blank - no title and nothing showing where there used to be options.

Had a rollercoaster of a day yesterday. Followed Microsoft advice on dealing with the MAPI.DLL problem (note not MAP132.DLL as I had thought) and Office 2003 worked. Decided to do a repair install of Windows XP. This completed OK and I then loaded Office 2007 and it works! Windows had installed IE 6 which seemed to work OK so when it then downloaded 59 updates I installed all including IE8. I am back to the same problem with that but have decided to take a breather for a few days before I readdress that.