I've been through this problem and can tell you that the fix on MS's site doesn't work. Deleting the individual user keys under the Protected Storage Provider key won't fix the problem more than likely. You'll actually have to follow their instructions, but delete the ENTIRE protected storage provider tree, not just the user keys. After doing this, reboot.
You will lose passwords stored for websites, but it's a fair trade considering you get your password-saving-ability back for both MSOE and MSO2K.
(taken from
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How to Remove the User Account Information
Quit all programs.
Click Start, click Run, type regedt32 in the Open box, and then click OK.
Locate and click the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Protected Storage System Provider
On the Security menu, click Permissions.
Click the registry key for the user that is currently logged on and ensure that Read and Full Control are both set to Allow.
Click the Advanced button, ensure that user that is currently logged on is selected, that Full Control is listed in the Permissions column, and that This Key and Subkeys is listed in the Apply to column.
Click to select the Reset permissions on all child objects and enable propagation of inheritable permissions check box.
Click Apply, and then click Yes when you are prompted to continue.
Click OK, and then click OK.
Double-click the Protected Storage System Provider key to expand the key, click the user subkey folder that is directly below the Protected Storage System Provider key, click Delete on the Edit menu, and then click Yes in the warning message dialog box.
The user subkey folder looks similar to the following example:
S-1-5-21-124525095-708259637-1543119021-16701
NOTE: For every identity that you have, there will be a subkey under the Protected Storage System Provider key. To resolve this problem in all of your identities, you must delete all of the user subkeys folders under the Protected Storage System Provider key.
On the Registry menu, click Exit, and then restart your computer.
After you restart, if you do NOT have MSO2K installed, you can't run Mail from control panel as MS states. Instead just launch MSOE, and put in your password when prompted. Close MSOE, and reopen - if you are again prompted for your password, you'll have to delete the entire Protected Storage System Provider key as I noted above. To do this, follow the procedure above until you reach the step for deleting the user key, and instead select the entire Protected Storage System Provider key.
Note that reinstalling will NOT fix your problem, as what has likely happened is your machine was setup using the sysprep utility, cloned with DriveImage, etc. The SID of the machine changed as a result of this and doesn't match what's in the Protected Storage System Provider key.
Cheers, it's beer-thirty.
