Replacement for Outlook Express on Win7

**HTMLBasicTutor** · Share | #1 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 01:27 AM

Windows 7 does not come with an email program.

I used Outlook Express and had it nicely organized.

All my emails and folders were backed up before moving to a new computer with Win7 64bit.

I have been using Windows Live Mail (replacement for Outlook Express that you have to download and install) for a week now:
a) It didn't import all my folders!
b) When Windows boots it says I don't have an email program installed! (Yes I told it to use Live Mail

as default)
c) There's no address book (wab) anymore therefore any older programs that used that file won't work.
d) The contacts thing is useless. Sorted all my contacts by category/group and you still see the whole list (in OE your main list of contacts was cleaned up if you moved contacts into groups)
e) Depending on how you try to send an email, it doesn't have the right people in the right group. e.g. under Family there are a couple of other people and no family.

So, you can tell I'm not happy with Windows Live Mail.

Any suggestions of something else that works like Outlook Express? Looked at Thunderbird but it didn't look much better than Live Mail.

I do NOT want to use web based mail so Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and what ever Hotmail is called now are not an option.

DavidCDD · #2 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 01:43 AM

Windows Live mail is CRAP!!! Its on Vista also but I still downloaded outlook as its what we use in work.

Microsoft has messed up with windows live and I hope they realize. They had a really good program with outlook I must admit.

OUTLOOK! OUTLOOK! OUTLOOK! OUTLOOK!

**HTMLBasicTutor** · #3 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 01:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by supportivhost

OUTLOOK! OUTLOOK! OUTLOOK! OUTLOOK!

Would that be a suggestion that I fork out $ for the latest greatest Outlook in Office. I have an old legit copy of Outlook, it wants the wab file.

Or was that your rant continued?

gammaRascal · #4 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 09:42 AM

I feel for ya. I used outlook for years then switched to Live Mail and thought it was great. Still kinda do but the latest refresh on the laptop and Live Mail just wouldn't import my contacts or folder or backup emails *damn it* So I've just cut my losses and moved to Thunderbird. It's 'meh' but.... Oh well.

Hades · #5 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 10:27 AM

I always found Mozilla's alternatives to Microsoft's projects to be faster and more customizable. I have been using Thunderbird since it came out in 2005 and never had a problem with it.

Though there are two things that I don't really like about it: 1- bad spam controls even if there are some plugins out there to deal with that, and 2-the advanced account set up screen is not very user friendly.

DavidCDD · #6 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by htmlbasictutor

Would that be a suggestion that I fork out $ for the latest greatest Outlook in Office. I have an old legit copy of Outlook, it wants the wab file.

Or was that your rant continued?

That was me just cheering for outlook lol. Its the only Microsoft program I like lol.

robjones · #7 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 11:13 AM

I had some problems with Thunderbird when it first came out, but couldnt get Outlook to work right when I switched to a laptop with Vista so I reverted to T-bird. I miss the features Outlook offered, so I'm hoping when I go to Win7 you'll have discovered a good alternative that includes a good import function.

Will cross my fingers and watch this thread.

**HTMLBasicTutor** · #8 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 12:01 PM

Hades,
In Thunderbird can you have more than one From using the same email address?

e.g. My Yahoo! Mail account I had 3 different Froms set up depending on who I was posting as/replying from:
-General - just my name
-The tutorials I post and reply to
-Web design questions from my web design business

They all used my Yahoo! email but the From text was different.

robjones · #9 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 12:05 PM

Quote:

In Thunderbird can you have more than one From using the same email address?

I'm not Hades, but yes, you can change the "from" pretty easily. I have three different email accounts set up in Tbird and sometimes I have to switch out the "from" info if I want them responding to the one they should have sent it to. There's a dropdown that handles it easily.

Hades · #10 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 12:12 PM

Yep, what rob said. The message screen shows you a dropdown with all your profiles. So if you want to have different "From" headers, simply create more than one Thunderbird profiles (even if they are actually the same email address).

That's the infraction-dodging version of: I agree, thx.

**HTMLBasicTutor** · #11 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 12:27 PM

Rob and Hades,
Will this tut work IF importing account settings from backup? Think I tried this and it didn't work. http://www.freeemailtutorials.com/mo...ngSettings.cwd

Hades · #12 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 12:34 PM

Sorry Hyper, I never had to import account settings from another program. When I moved from Outlook Express to Thunderbird I just exported all my emails to a zip, left them there and manually opened them when I needed.

**ScriptMan** · #13 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 12:55 PM

I use freeagent for my usenet reading and posting. It supports email but I have never used it for that. Also I do not know if it does WIN7.

http://www.forteinc.com/agent/

EDIT: The paid program is free to try for 90 days.

robjones · #14 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 01:04 PM

I switched over almost 2 years ago and the method I used was to pull the emails down from gmail (which I had been using to reroute some old email addies). I recall it being fairly easy to do, but the details escape me.

gammaRascal · #15 (**permalink**) 12-22-2009, 06:41 PM

I think someone needs to PM the rest of the MODS to get in here and state their opinions lol

WebshoppeSolutions · #16 (**permalink**) 01-06-2010, 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by supportivhost

Windows Live mail is CRAP!!! Its on Vista also but I still downloaded outlook as its what we use in work.

Microsoft has messed up with windows live and I hope they realize. They had a really good program with outlook I must admit.

OUTLOOK! OUTLOOK! OUTLOOK! OUTLOOK!

Indeed

And Outlook rates right up there with notepad IMO ... indispensable.

**ScriptMan** · #17 (**permalink**) 01-07-2010, 07:56 AM

Tutor what did you finally choose?

dWhite · #18 (**permalink**) 01-07-2010, 08:02 AM

Mozilla Thunderbird is a pretty nice alternative to Outlook.

**HTMLBasicTutor** · #19 (**permalink**) 01-07-2010, 08:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScriptMan

Tutor what did you finally choose?

I'm still struggling with Live Mail at the moment. Miss my Inbox as a To Do List (it files emails not put in specific folders under the email address and if you have multiple email addresses you have to check each one's Inbox).

Have to convert my backed up emails to a different format to import into Thunderbird. The thing I found didn't seem to work and haven't gotten back to the task.

**HTMLBasicTutor** · #20 (**permalink**) 01-16-2010, 11:59 PM

Found Zimbra Desktop tonight. Anyone using it?