Windows Mail

How to Reinstate Windows Mail in Windows 7​

   Warning

Microsoft no longer supports Windows Mail, aka WinMail. It's recommended you use another well known supported email client. This Tutorial is for Advanced users who importantly have the Technical Ability to make the changes, have backups of everything including your OS, and to be your own tech support for WinMail going forward. If you decide to complete this tutorial you accept the fact that you are using WinMail as-is. It might be necessary to uninstall other email clients to resolve any WinMail conflicts in some environments. Understand it's likely that new OS updates from Microsoft will break WinMail's operation, and to fix make it necessary to rerun the tutorial again to reinstate it. With those things in mind, this tutorial was written so that you can rerun it without affecting WinMail user data.
Please see this Errata (Bug List) post before you install, to be aware of the current information about known issues using WinMail within Windows 7, these issues are programmatic and in most cases cannot be resolved by this tutorial, and will never be fixed.

Having said all of that disclaimer, if you have the technical ability, and can put up with the annoying minor byproduct bugs, then like so many of us still enjoy using WinMail on Windows 7 ...ymmv!

   Tip

As of January, 2025, the instructions given here supersede all other instructions given in forthcoming older posts. Realize some of the posts that follow are over 16 years old, and many of the link pointers within have become mislinked over time, many of the files or information within them is outdated, incomplete, or superseded with more accurate information - and so be careful. However you can always be sure that the latest info from all research is incorporated into this tutorial post, and its downloads are the latest available. This post is continuously kept up-to-date, and so..
...Always refer to this Tutorial post for the very latest updated information

This is the 4th iteration of the Windows 7, WinMail tutorial.

The process of this tutorial Will Not work to reinstate WinMail on Windows 8/10 !
Windows 8/10 users please go Here

Start here

1. Download tutorial package TutReWinMail.zip
   
   Download
   
   
2. Extract the TutReWinMail.zip into your user Downloads folder
   • Note: Be sure once extracted this is the address of the ''TutReWinMail'' folder:
   • C:\Users\username\Downloads\TutReWinMail... ... (if it's not there please put it there)
3. Navigate to your user Downloads\TutReWinMail folder to be sure the above is correct.
   • (..if you need more verbose install instructions to follow, download this WinMail Local Tutorial.zip)
   • Advanced Users can proceed below:

     ---

     (..log in for Full Access, being able to get support, remove ads, like, and even to post, etc..)

Advanced Users: ..use this easy excellent overview of the steps in the local tutorial:

• Open an Administrator Command Prompt. (screenshot showing in Administrator mode)
• copy/paste this line into the command prompt: cd %USERPROFILE%\Downloads\TutReWinMail\
• Your command prompt must now be showing you are at That Same Folder Address ..which contains the tutorial files that the batch file in the next step executes programs and copies files specifically from that folder address - if it's not there the batch file will fail since it cannot find what it needs!
• Next type in either winmail32 or win64mail <matching OS bit, to interactively process These Next Steps
• If you've finished to the bottom as shown in last screenshot, restart your machine (sets registry)
• Create a shortcut from WinMail.exe to your Desktop
• Open WinMail - it may prompt you one (or both) of These Two Notices ..click yes, and okay.
• They now should be already set, but you can manually check/set at any time These Default Settings
• That's pretty much all there is to it, and from here you setup the rest of the Windows Mail client (aka: WinMail) as normal within its various tab menus for Accounts, Options, Layout, etc, etc, to suit your individual needs.
• Lastly, but should be the First thing you do, is to Create A WinMail Backup (new version) ..Go to this next link and when you get there scroll down to the heading: Backup/Restore Procedures for further instructions.

   Information

See How to open an elevated Administrator Command Prompt
Important: The exact text provided by the tutorial must be entered into the Administrator Command Prompt.
Hint: to avoid typos, copy/paste the entire line containing the command into the Command Prompt window.
Also see: How to Enable Copy to Clipboard from the Windows 7 Command Prompt

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Every effort has been made to make this a step-by-step process, however, it is beyond the scope of a single tutorial to provide information on every command or concept. Search the Main Tutorial Section if you need greater detail on a concept or command presented in this tutorial.

Good luck, and long live WinMail

   Note

Made possible by members:
Mark (aka Mr GRiM) - provided the original tutorial
Poppa Bear - continued Mark's work within the 2nd version
endeavor - provided continuous feedback, changes, invaluable testing instrumental to tutorial operations
EKManitis - propose the batch code that made operations easier
Slartybart - updated, tested, and consolidated all of the above into the 3rd version
endeavor - reviewed, updated, tested, and incorporated all of the above into this 4th version
...and also a special thanks to All the other members who presented discovery for this project

Related Tutorials

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• How to Backup/Restore Messages in Windows Mail (Vista version)
  
• Windows Calendar - Import into Windows 7
• Vista Windows Sidebar - Reinstate on Windows 7
• Windows Live Mail - Import Windows Mail Messages
• Windows Live Mail - Import Windows 7 and Vista Contacts

 

[endeavor]

Which bears out what I've been preaching for what seems to be 1000 years in various forums, keep your computer up to date, all of it, even bits you may not use, especially browsers and their add-ons.

Yes this time it served you well, but sometimes equally it's a 'not so much' too, since leaving it on Automatic Update is many times a two edged sword, especially for techs, find that many times it automatically updates to some other problem or especially something they did not want that was before its time. (Yes I do see Peter you mention you have WU set to alert you first)

I am in the middle of the road with Auto Updates, and I prefer to be in control of my computers destiny on my own terms, and so always manually check for updates when convenient for me, and certainly before I do any updates #1 is to make a partition image backup, as well as take software file/registry snapshots so that if needed I have mi-nute abilities to see every single change in original GUI layout for both, that was made, and to reverse any of or parts of the changes - very helpful for troubleshooting techniques, as well as watching an update flow is to me a learning, knowledgeable, teachable and informational moment as to let's say the...philosophy of the updates intention and its target.

Don't want to get OT here, but thought it was worth mentioning in contrast.



.

 

[endeavor]

Hi Bill,
Yes understood, and you're right.

Neat stuff.

Thanks very much for your support as well.

I'm too very happy it was an update that fixed the problem rather than any 'modifications' on our part, and thanks to MS for the update which was needed for the whole anyway.
At any rate it couldn't have turned out any better for all of us concerned.

 

[Ex_Brit]

Well all's well that ends well, as the saying goes. Whodathunkit, that an MS Update would actually fix what is basically a hack....no offense meant to its authors of course.

 

[kewl1]

Sorry for the slow reply Endeavor as I had to go away on a fast trip to Quebec and just got back. I can't thank you enough for helping me to get my beloved Windows Mail working on my new laptop. If you think of any more questions please ask. I don't think I ever would have figured out that there was a relationship between IE11 and Mail.

 

[Slartybart]

Well all's well that ends well, as the saying goes. Whodathunkit, that an MS Update would actually fix what is basically a hack....no offense meant to its authors of course.

There were many authors of the tutorial, I don't think anyone would take offense

The real issues was that IE 11 introduced things in the 64-bit version that broke more than just WinMail. I think the Feb 11 Windows Update (WU) might have 'cured' a lot of hangs / crashes / BSODs etc.

What MS 'breaks', MS has to fix, eh wot!

The trick is to accept all WU and see how your system runs. If issues do crop up (rare) then you have to figure out which update caused the issue - easy if there's only one update, but cumulative updates present another difficulty.

I tend to err on the side of caution with non-core updates for any application unless it addresses an issue on my machine. Even then I watch carefully after apply the update and roll it back if new issues crop up.

It's a delicate dance.

Thanks for your involvement in solving this issue Ex_Brit. I'm sure endeavor was scratching his head - "Why doesn't Ex_Brit have this problem when I set up the 'same' test environment and the issue shows in my lab"?

Bill
.

 

[kewl1]

Thanks Endeavor. You are certainly dedicated and this is much appreciated. I find it ironic though that MS has fixed something for us that they no doubt don't want us to use. What's next? An update to crack Office?

 

[endeavor]

kewl1 you understand that Microsoft did not fix it for WinMail per-sey, but they fixed 25 important issues that affected many different problems that were corrected, but WinMail's 64 bit HTML particular problem thankfully shared similar instances affecting other supported softwares too, and so those are the ones that really got fixed, and thankfully by it's very nature ended up fixing it for WinMail too.

Also to everyone I wanted to say this update not only fixed things for 64 bit IE11 WinMail issues, but it also definitely, tested & confirmed, improved/stabilized WinMail HTML operation on WinMail IE11 '32bit' as well. I say that from observing during bench testing found that I actually could make it so that WinMail on 32bit OS's crashed on the problematic .eml files but Only 'if' I tried to forward one of them and then edit a portion of the original body, then it would crash; also I noticed on another of the problematic .eml files sent in, that even though WinMail did not crash upon opening any of them, but for instance on this particular one the inserted signature portion of that email would show in a 'Different' font each time I opened it - which of course was dysfunctional, and so my point is with the same IE11 update done of Win7 32bit OS's, those same anomalies just mentioned are now fixed as well, and so WinMail 'on those counts' is more stable.

Tracking the 32 bit install I can see it replaced all the same files on 32 bit as it did on 64 bit OS's as well.

All in all, when it comes to WinMail MS14-010 (KB2909921) is an update to install on both Win7 32 bit & 64 bit respectively.

 

[roncerr]

...I find it ironic though that MS has fixed something for us that they no doubt don't want us to use...

Whatever effect Microsoft patches have on Windows Mail, good or bad, is coincidental and unintentional. It's like being ignored rather than hated or loved.

 

[grits]

Wow, and to think I held off of installing KB2909921 for fear of having it mess up my WinMail. I don't recall having any problems with it (WM) tho' like the other posters did. Thanks for easing my mind, now I'm off to go ahead & install it.

A bit OT here, my fear comes from the fact that I have no back ups, no images. I haven't been able to afford an external drive so just keep crossing my fingers.

 

[endeavor]

Whatever effect Microsoft patches have on Windows Mail, good or bad, is coincidental and unintentionl. It's like being ignored rather than hated or loved.

@ Ron,
I don't want to agree with you Ron because I am a true WinMail user, but you know... ...you are surly right, as far as MS goes, we are coincidental and unintentional, but that's the excitement and advantage of living on the edge, especially if you are in control of it, and if you prefer all the advantages and nostalgic of using WinMail... and personally I do, so imho&e, I'd rather use WinMail than any other

@ Grits
Hi, good to see you, you are a part of an innocent and enduring history you know!
..but as for your fear, even at the very least, if you have the MS built-in System Restore enabled and know how to use it, then for free of charge, you are set free with only the off-chance limitation that depends on your HD longevity.

 

[roncerr]

...imho&e...

Re: "&e", even Google couldn't help me with that. All I could find is that it gets a lot of use after "imho".

 

[endeavor]

imho & experience

 

[Slartybart]

If I haven't already said this, I think members who benefited from endeavor's testing (I did)
should definitely "tip the scales" (I did) on post# 1452

Shortcut to the scales on post# 1452:

It takes a lot of effort to set up test environments and ensure that plain vanilla Windows is running. We all have our favorite utilities and they cannot be used in a pure test.

That plus all of the msgs endeavor was willing to analyze. Above and beyond the call of duty in my book.

 

[roncerr]

Shortcut to the scales on post# 1452: .

OK. I gave him the rep for post 1452. Then I wanted to give him another for his explanation of "e" in post 1473 (even more helpful to me) but was informed that I must spread it around before I can rep him again.

 

[kewl1]

Oh no. New Problem

Just when I was so excited about my Windows mail working, I find out that it is sending everyone two copies of each email. I tested this extensively tonight by sending many emails to all my email addresses and sure enough they all go as duplicates. Has anyone ever had this crazy problem before?

 

[endeavor]

Hi kewl1,

Yes that happens when you have possibly another email client like Outlook installed and both are not setup correctly, or that somehow there is two accounts listed, at any rate either of which is easy to fix. By the way, what have you recently done different, install or otherwise, when this started happening compared to the other day when it was fine?

I could type different scenarios out for you, but thought lets empower you to succeed on your own so I'll give you a link and you you can research the few simple steps to fix it.

Please let us know which situation you had of the pick, and which resolve worked to fix your situation.

Search Link

 

[kewl1]

This has been going on for a while but only since I got the new laptop and have been trying to fix Windows Mail. It must as you say have something to do with duplicate accounts. I phoned my ISP today and they said there is nothing at their end and it has to be in my software. They said to call MS but somehow I didn't think MS would help me with Windows Mail on my Windows 7 machines.

I suspect now that it has something to do with dragging and dropping files. This was done on both laptops because the IE11 problem even affected the old laptop. Now that I am pointed in the right direction I will do some more experimenting tonight when I can find some time. I will also check to see if I have Windows Mail somehow running in both the 32 and 64 bit folders if that is possible.

Ahh and also now that I think of it, I use Outlook only for my business email but same ISP etc and it is not affected ie neither sending nor receiving duplicates.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[endeavor]

It's not the things you mention at the end of your first paragraph, and your last paragraph tells you it's not the ISP nor do I think that was ever a possibility in your case. Nor is it both 32 & 64 running. When you are investigating things on Google or any engine, be 'discerning' to all the things that are written here and there, and consider the ones that ring true.

I was pointing you more in the lines with, while WinMail is open, go up to the top tab of
Tools> Accounts ...and in here do you have two of the same accounts listed, etc..

Also if what you are meaning by dragging and dropping, well if you are doing it in the
C:\Users\-yourcomputername-\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail
folder, then you have to be very careful in how you do that, since usually if you are trying to bring one WinMail store up to date on another computer, you have to replace the entire folder and not just copy into it, because if you do then you will end up with duplicate emails and multiple accounts if they are different between each setup.

 

[roncerr]

Using Endeavor's search link, I found this post:
Tech Support Guy - Solved: Duplicates Emails Send in Window Mail

 

[kewl1]

Yep solved the problem for me with the duplicates. But now unbelievably I am back to having the "Windows has stopped Working" problem but after fading and freezing it restarts after a minute so I think I will remove IE11 again