Windows 7: Windows Mail

• The "Send Receive" button has been replaced with a "Sync" button. When this is pressed, it shows the same window for incoming/outgoing mail as Windows Mail.
• Every email account is shown individually in the left pane of the main window, with it's own set of folders for Inbox, Drafts, Sent Items, etc. So if you've got 3 or 4 email addresses you'll have 3 or 4 Accounts in the left panel, each with it's own folders.
• It also has a "Quick View" set of folders at the top of the left panel which shows a summary of all emails. And you can customize the Quick View to show which emails you want to see, such as Junk, Drafts, etc.
• Finally it has a set of "Storage Folders" in the left panel, under the Accounts. The folders include: Drafts, Sent Items, Deleted Items, Inbox, Junk Mail and Outbox.
• It has 45 color options for text, as opposed to 15 in WinMail.
• It has 70 Emoticons you can put into the text.
• The Menu bar is not shown by default, which is typical of all Windows 7 folders. You need to click an icon in the top right of the task bar and tick "Show Menu Bar".
• It has 3 buttons on the left above the main text: "Format'", "Photos" and "Layout". The photos button allows photos to be added. The Format & Layout buttons allow a photo to edited by rotating, changing size, adding a text box, auto correcting the image, changing the type of framing, etc.
• Images are added using: Menu --> Insert --> Image --> Inline. There is no button in the taskbar to insert images as in WinMail.
• In the left panel under the accounts, there are buttons which change the main window display to: Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Feeds and News Groups. As you click each one, the main window is changed, so you see the item mentioned; except for Contacts which are shown as a separate window.
• The format buttons are in a drop down menu rather than individual buttons on the task bar, which is more inconvenient. The drop down menus include bulleting, numbering; formatting alignment such as Left, Right, Justify; as well as Indents & Insert a straight line.
• When a contact in the Contacts folder is highlighted by hovering the mouse over it, it shows the option to send an email by single clicking this option.
• Naturally, the SPAM/Phishing filter works, including updates, and is the same basic lay-out as WinMail.
• When setting up accounts, once the user name, password, and display name is entered it auto fills the POP3 & SMTP protocol; and provides links to set up IMAP for Gmail, etc.
• Junk/SPAM email options are found under taskbar Tools --> Safety Options
• It boots up a lot quicker than WinMail and there is no splash screen to disable.

The main objection is the enforced display of all accounts, which makes the left panel very bulky if you have a lot of accounts. Mostly though, it's just a case of getting used to the new format, and postions of command buttons. I've been testing it for two weeks now, and overall it's quite good, and the extra features helpful. Drop down menus are a pain after individual buttons in the task bar, but it does tidy up the task bar.

The main adavantage I guess is having a fully operational application, which won't be borked by updates.

Hope this may help those who for whatever reason can't get Windows Mail to work.

Cheers PB

Anyone having a new problem is the last few days? My Mom's folders seem to be wiped out and she is getting strange error messages, etc.



bob

It might help to clean out your "Local Folders" folder in AppData as per Part A of the following post found here.

If your mom has downloaded the Microsoft update KB978542 the msoe.dll file in Windows Mail folder will need to be replaced with the new modified mose.dll file from the download link in Step 4 of the tutorial on page one.

If that doesn't fix it, the only other suggestion would be to re-run the tutorial from the top.

Hope this helps. Cheers PB

Thanks, we did do the KB978542 fix a while back..... This just happened yesterday after she said yes to some kind of update yesterday!


bob

Go to your Windows Update history and let us know which updates she installed yesterday.

To steelgtr re:Just to cover all bases, when you fixed the msoe.dll after the KB update, did you leave the update in or delete it? If you deleted it, and then replaced the existing msoe.dll file with the updated one from the tutorial, next time your mom got updates, it would download KB978542 again and bork the modified msoe.dll. The correct procedure is to leave the update in, then do the msoe.dll update; or remove it and next time it comes up as an available update, make it invisible.

Cheers PB

Quote
Every email account is shown individually in the left pane of the main window, with it's own set of folders for Inbox, Drafts, Sent Items, etc. So if you've got 3 or 4 email addresses you'll have 3 or 4 Accounts in the left panel, each with it's own folders.
Quote

This is the one thing I cannot stand in WindowsLiveMail and why I will never use it.

Thanks a lot, Poppa.

I have done the windows update except with the KB 978542 (I unticked this one at the list of Windows updates) and is working fine.


Btw, what should I do if the KB 978542 appears again in the windows update list?
thxs, jms

It will probably appear again. When it does, untick it, right click and click "hide" in the menu options. It will then be grayed out and should not show up again.

Or you can donwnload it, then replace the msoe.dll after downloading, and it will not show up again as it's already installed. And it won't bork WinMail as you've loaded the msoe.dll after you got the update. This is the method I used.

Cheers PB

PB,
I didn't do anything to the update, forgot about turning off auto updates!
I'll be up there in a day or so and will disable that update

thx

bob