Why I wish I could use Windows Mail formerly known as Outlook Express, in Windows 8. *If* I had Windows 8. I don’t have it. This message is a response to someone on another thread who wondered why I would want Windows Mail in the newest operating system, Windows 8.
From what I understand, Windows 8 has “Metro” Mail which at this point only allows IMAP accounts, not the POP3 accounts I think most people use. I suppose that’ll change someday. Dunno. In an IMAP account your mail is stored somewhere on a server and a shadow or duplicate copy is stored on your own computer. When you send an email, it goes up to the cloud to that server first, and then is sent back to your own computer so (for me at least) there is a lag between when I send an email and when I see it in my computer email program’s “sent messages” box. IMAP mail is nice for people who need to access their mail from multiple locations and do want to also be able to see it on their own computer when they are offline. For me, POP3 is fine and one benefit is that there is no lag time.
1. It has a single inbox and I do not have to mess with multiple inboxes, one for each account, or use an “all” inbox which is a shadow of all the real ones. Regarding Windows Live Mail 2011, it will allow you to change the order of your inboxes (one for each email address you have) but if you close the program and reopen it, everything will have switched back to its original location.
2. It has an image resizer so I can send small image files, in my choice of sizes, to people as attachments to the email. They can easily view these small size files in the body of the email. They do not have to connect to “Skydrive” to see the photos I sent them up there in the cloud on somebody’s server and there is no time limit on how long they are available to be viewed. And, if I attach a photo to an email without skydrive, it does not appear in the recipient’s box full size so that you can’t make head or tail of it by scrolling down in the body of the email, you have to view it in an image viewer to see it all at once in the same screen. Photos are important to me. They are part of the way I make my living. I need to be able to send them to clients in small size attachments for quick viewing and attaching has to be click click click, not a roundabout method.
3. It has no Skydrive connection (not interested in Skydrive).
4. My “storage folders” are immediately beneath the standard non-deletable original folders: Inbox, Outbox, Sent Mail, Deleted, Drafts, Junk Mail and this order of boxes I just typed is intuitive and common sense, in its order.
5. The “ribbon” is simple and easy to use, rather than being an exploded mess like WLM. Nuff said about that because new WLM users know.
6. It is both Pop3 and IMAP so you can have both types of accounts.
7. Webmail isn’t better than the email program. I have several webmail accounts and don’t care for them for heavy duty use on a daily basis. I want my mail on my own computer where I can see it and access it whether I am online or not.
8. I don’t care for Outlook.
9. I don’t have to look around and find a non-microsoft email program such as Thunderbird, Eudora etc. I know many use and love them and that’s wonderful. I like to stick with what I know in an email program that I have customized to suit my individual needs.
10. I can copy and paste a news story into an email in WM and then highlight the headline and drag it to the subject line and drop it in the subject line. No need to cut and paste it to get it into the subject line. I send a lot of news stories and I also save a lot to my own folders so I can use them for reference later when I am writing something. So this was a valuable thing to me although it may not matter to others.
11. I can forward any email with pictures I want to anyone else and it does not give the recipient blank boxes like WLM 2011 does (I hear there is a WLM 2012 that works ok in that regard, just wonder why the heck I could not get it in January when I had to switch over from XP to Windows 7 because my old laptop died. Why did I have to struggle with 2011 when 2012 existed? I didn’t find any 2012 then. I wonder why not.
That’s just 11 reasons I’d love to have Windows Mail (formerly Outlook Express) in Windows 8. I am sure there are more if I took more time to think about it.
I did try Windows Live Mail for 5 months and tried really hard to like it and work with it before I gave up and used the http://www.sevenforums.com tutorial on how to install Windows Mail in Windows 7. I did it, it was scary because to me the instructions were confusing, but, it turned out to be easy and I am so happy with it now. In that same thread there is a message on thread page 125 by Endeavor in which he says Windows Mail can be used in Windows 8 and he provides a link to another post of his in http://www.eightforums.com where he describes how to do it. I do not have Windows 8 so I can’t try it myself. The EightForums thread was written in January so something may have changed since then to make it not work in Windows 8. My email program is *extremely* important to me and whether the one I have to use does what I want and need it to do plays a large part in my OS choices. I recognize this is not so for many others.
Kelliann
