Outlook Express Giving Me Fits

[DaveM]

Ok--Hal II has been in operation for nearly a week and appears by and large to be willing to let me operate him. With one exception:

After tinkering for I know not how long with the security setting in Outlook Express, it finally allowed me to receive MOST of my mail, pictures included with it, and at least shows where links are. HOWEVER, no matter what I do, it will not render links as "active" or clickable. They work some of the time if I cut and paste them--other times they do not work at all.

Understand that I'd never used a Microsoft mail client until six days ago, so if I have missed something obvious, do be gentle with me. But at this point, I am about ready to hold a "back to the 90s" party and switch back to Netscape 4.8. Which will, incidentally, run quite nicely on Windows XP.

Anyone have any ideas?

[janisian]

I've never had much look with Express, myself; always ended up re-loading regular Outlook instead. Sorry I can't be of more help!

[paularoid]

Switch to Thunderbird, import everything, and don't look back except to bid a long overdue farewell to Outlook Express.
.

[DaveM]

Thanks....glad to hear that I am not alone is absolutely HATING this program.

It probably does not help that HP loads it computers with at least as much garbage as Dell does, and removing it not only takes forever, but also has a tendency to make other things disappear in the process. An HP "de-crapifier" would be very handy indeed.

To the extent that I do have this machine working, it is working beautifully, and I don't for a moment regret the upgrade. But after nearly 10 years of using Windows 98 and the virtually identical Windows 95, it's a bit of an adjustment, I must admit.

[dutchcloggie]

Outlook Express is spawn of Satan!

If you have to use something like that, Outlook is better. Unfortunately, for some mysterious reason, Outlook does not allow you Newsgroups which is the one and only nice thing about Outlook Express. I guess they think Outlook is for work (where you should not use Newsgroups) and Express is for fun. Yeah right.

I quite liked Eudora but that was years ago. Never got to grips with Thunderbird but I can see how people like it. These things all work best if you use the same stuff for everything (Firefox/Thunderbird or IE/Outlook etc.)

[Lily]

something like Eudora or such, even if they will charge you $39 for it, you will get a company that takes responsibility for it's product. Never had a problem with that one in years, while Outlook Express has been a real curse for us...Plus it's too-o-o tightly coupled with it's parent (the OS) , for my taste :-) that is where the "security" and attachment issues come from, I guess

[Bat]

The Mail program is the one reason I stay with AOL, if I needed only one.
Some people really give AOL a hard time, but I find it extremely easy to work with and it has given me no trouble whatsoever, so I'll stay.

[DaveM]

I finally gave up and went back to my old e-mail program. Perhaps I'll tackle that Microsoft beast another day, but for now, I simply have too many other uses for my time.

[Dee]

First of all Dave, congrats on the new baby. :)

I never use Outlook Express. It came with my new system when I bought it last Summer, but I out-and-out refuse to use anything but web-based mail.

[John L]

Is Pegasus Mail. Old, but stable.

http://www.pmail.com/

Personally, I use Outlook on Windows machines, the built in Mail client on MAc, and Evolution on Linux. Flirted with Pegasus for some time but I like how Outlook and Pocket PC work together.

I consider Outlook Express, Netscape mail, and AOL mail all equally crappy in that , if you ever try to migrate from them, you will have a hard time locating and exporting the mail store...It can be done, but it's non-trivial.

[John L]

In outlook express, in the toolbar:

Tools>Options>Security Settings is where these settings can be found.

However, changing the settings will not reduce the suckiness factor of OE one bit.

[Eva]

I have Eudora. Never had any problems with it. Even if I'm completely computer-retarded.

Oh, and it looks prettier too. How about just getting rid of Outlook?


Eva

[Bat]

I have never used OE. I've read too many horror stories about its vulnerability to viruses, etc.
I like AOL mail program, and even use it to compose letters to print and send...not gorgeous, but unlimited fonts, and very flexible composition, easy to embed photos, etc....I don't bother with office either, I don't need it. If I want to have access to Power Point and Word, there are free reader programs,which I have, as there are for PFA Adobe programs. As I don't need to create in any of these, I don't have them.

[MadMusician]

I use Outlook (not Express) and have 5 email accounts coming into different Outlook folders. All (except junk mail) is downloaded to my machine when I open Outlook. I have set up email filters at the mail server. I don't leave duplicates emails on the mail server - privacy issues.

I am able to sort, archive, etc... with little effort. I choose how I want to view my email. I maintain contact information and the calender so I have reminders display each morning when I open - even to remind me that Tuesday night the garbage must be moved to the curb for pickup. ;)