Outlook 2007 and Vista

I have a new (2 months old) Vista Ultimate machine and have installed Office Enterprise 2007. It was working but, after a time, I found that search wasn’t working in Outlook. I found a post about this (http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/showpost.aspx?postid=1364475&siteid=1&sb=0&d=1&at=7&ft=11&tf=0&pageid=1) but that’s made it far worse. I then tried to uninstall Office – it hung. Tried to re-install it. It hung. Now Vista tells me I can’t uninstall or re-install it.
It’s a chaotic mess – Micrsoft’s own software doesn’t seem to be supported on their own current OS!
I’d welcome any ideas or experience.