An elderly friend of mine ordered a new laptop, and asked me to help her get it set up. We did fine until we came to email. Her 8-yr-old Dell system used Outlook Express (ewww) with the POP userid that the local cable company, who provides our broad-band Internet, had set up for her years ago. Not surprisinly, I couldn't find Outlook Express on her new Win7 laptop. Windows Help informed me that it was no longer included in Windows, and that the replacement was Windows Live Mail. It asked me if I wanted to install that, and I said I did. I picked "Run", and the install program ran successfully and informed me that it needed to restart the system to complete the install, to which I agreed. When the system came back up, I was suprised that there was not a WinMail icon on the desktop or in the taskbar. I opened the Start Menu to look for it, but was unable to find anything about Windows Live Mail. The folder named "Windows Live" contained only one icon, for "Windows Live Mesh". There were also single entries for some photo and other useless stuff, but nothing for mail.
Some Googling on the Internet turned up a note that you could run it manually by entering "winmail.exe" in the Run box. Things went from bad to worse when I discovered that this laptop doesn't have a "Run' button on its Start Menu!! I have no idea why - on my Win7 box, it is between "Help and Support" and "Shutdown". When I set this laptop up, I specified that it be a single user system, so doesn't that mean that she is Administrator or has the same privleges as Administrator (I have been on Win7 less than a week myself, so I am still learning its idiosyncrasies) ? I tried bringing up a DOS box by typing "command prompt" in the Start Menu Search box, but of course that didn't work because it couldn't find it. It was kinda weird to see a DOS box after 6 or 7 years, but I digress...
Next, I did a search for "winmail.exe", but it found nothing. A search for "winmail" produced 4 instances of the file "winmail.mui". I have no idea what that is or why there was 4 of them, but they weren't executable.
Thinking that perhaps I had somehow booted the install, perhaps because I had told it to only install Mail rather than the whole slew of apps, I went back to the web site and downloaded the program to the Desktop instead of running it. This time I told it to install the whole mess. Reboot...no joy...still can't find a Windows Live Mail icon or any way to run it.
I know that this lady should probably be doing browser-based email like me and most of the rest of the world, but that would mean that she would have to change her email address that she has for years, and she doesn't want to do that. Besides, I have no intention of dropping this until I figure this out. I am a retired software engineer and have been using and supporting personal computers since before the IBM PC even existed, and I have lost very few battles - I don't intend to lose this one...heh...
Surely there is a simple answer to this?
Some Googling on the Internet turned up a note that you could run it manually by entering "winmail.exe" in the Run box. Things went from bad to worse when I discovered that this laptop doesn't have a "Run' button on its Start Menu!! I have no idea why - on my Win7 box, it is between "Help and Support" and "Shutdown". When I set this laptop up, I specified that it be a single user system, so doesn't that mean that she is Administrator or has the same privleges as Administrator (I have been on Win7 less than a week myself, so I am still learning its idiosyncrasies) ? I tried bringing up a DOS box by typing "command prompt" in the Start Menu Search box, but of course that didn't work because it couldn't find it. It was kinda weird to see a DOS box after 6 or 7 years, but I digress...
Next, I did a search for "winmail.exe", but it found nothing. A search for "winmail" produced 4 instances of the file "winmail.mui". I have no idea what that is or why there was 4 of them, but they weren't executable.
Thinking that perhaps I had somehow booted the install, perhaps because I had told it to only install Mail rather than the whole slew of apps, I went back to the web site and downloaded the program to the Desktop instead of running it. This time I told it to install the whole mess. Reboot...no joy...still can't find a Windows Live Mail icon or any way to run it.
I know that this lady should probably be doing browser-based email like me and most of the rest of the world, but that would mean that she would have to change her email address that she has for years, and she doesn't want to do that. Besides, I have no intention of dropping this until I figure this out. I am a retired software engineer and have been using and supporting personal computers since before the IBM PC even existed, and I have lost very few battles - I don't intend to lose this one...heh...
Surely there is a simple answer to this?
My Computer
At a glance
Windows 7 Home Premium SP-1 64-bitIntel i2600k8 GBATI Radeon HD 6950 1 GB
- Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
- Digital Storms
- OS
- Windows 7 Home Premium SP-1 64-bit
- CPU
- Intel i2600k
- Motherboard
- ASUS P8P67
- Memory
- 8 GB
- Graphics Card(s)
- ATI Radeon HD 6950 1 GB
- Sound Card
- MB
- Monitor(s) Displays
- Dell UltraSharp 23"
- Hard Drives
- 1TB Western Digital Caviar (7200 RPM)
- PSU
- Corsair CX600 V2 600W
- Case
- Cooler Master HAF 932
- Cooling
- Corsair A70 Dual 120mm Fans High Performance Cooler
