---
title: "Fixing \"mapi32.dll is an invalid Extended MAPI Library\" and \"Mail is not installed on your system\" on Windows Server 2003 with Exchange"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2006/6/13/fixing-quotmapi32dll-is-an-invalid-extended-mapi-libraryquot.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2006/6/13/fixing-quotmapi32dll-is-an-invalid-extended-mapi-libraryquot.html"
published: "2006-06-13T11:26:00"
updated: "2006-06-13T11:26:00"
tags: ["General Software Devel...", "Off Topic"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "I get these annoying message on w Windows 2003 Server with Exchange Installed, when trying to do mail merge or send do as attachement from within Word: \"mapi32.dll is an invalid Extended MAPI Library Mail is not…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Fixing "mapi32.dll is an invalid Extended MAPI Library" and "Mail is not installed on your system" on Windows Server 2003 with Exchange

By Roy Osherove June 13, 2006 In [General Software Devel...](https://osherove.com/blog/category/general-software-devel), [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

**Historical article** · Originally published June 13, 2006; technical details may be outdated.

I get these annoying message on w Windows 2003 Server with Exchange Installed, when trying to do mail merge or send do as attachement from within Word:

"mapi32.dll is an invalid Extended MAPI Library
Mail is not installed on your system"

I looked everywhere how to fix it, but it turns out there's a really easy fix for it.

From the [TomorrowMan](http://www.tomorrowman.com/?p=4):

"This appears to be because the Exchange 2003 version of mapi32.dll located in c:\\windows\\system32\\ has overwritten the Office 2003 version of MAPI32.dll and they are different.

To fix this problem I just took **a copy of mapi32.dll from another Office 2003 installation and placed it in C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\OFFICE11\\** because it seems office will look there first, and voila it now works. "

Works like a charm.

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---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

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### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/