wrote:

on the last reinstall, i must have done something different, as the
Outlook installed as if it had never been on the system before, with
an empty profile, no email, no connection to a .pst, etc...

i looked in the \Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook,
and my original Outlook.pst was there (thankfully), and a new 'empty'
Outlook1.pst was also there, and seemed to be my new data file.

i imported from the original Outlook.pst, and voila, all the email
with stationary was fixed, as well as new email being ok...

NEVER import from a PST. It's likely to damage the mail profile. Instead,
you should have used the Mail applet in Control Panel to add the old PST,
made it the delivery location, then removed the new, empty outlook1.pst from
the profile.

suddenly i have this problem again (would like to know how it happens,
but...)
but i can not figure out how to do the complete deinstall/reinstall...
i copied the outlook1.pst out of the folder after the deinstall, but
on the reinstall, Outlook will not start until i point to it as the
data file...

how can i fully reset Outlook and try the import again?

Don't. Do what I wrote above and just reuse the correct PST.
--
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]