Send and receive email with Windows 7

This Workshop is aimed primarily at Windows 7 users, because Microsoft’s new operating system does not include an email tool. However, it’s worth noting that Windows Live Email also works in Windows Vista and XP, should you be seeking an alternative to Outlook Express or Windows Mail. To download Windows Live Email begin by launching a web browser, clicking once in the Address or Location bar to highlight what’s there, replace it by typing www.snipca.com/x793 and then press Enter.

When the Windows Live Mail page appears click the Download button on the right-hand side. If the File Download – Security Warning dialogue box appears, click the Run button. If using Firefox, click Save File, then locate and double-click the downloaded file. If Windows 7 or Vista pop up a User Account Control warning, click Yes to allow the installation to continue.

Before the installation of Windows Live Mail proceeds, this application-selection dialogue box will appear. These tools are the programs that make up Microsoft’s Windows Live range and, while some of them are worth having, they will not be our focus here. So, decide which ones you want, removing the ticks from those you don’t. Here, we have left Mail ticked, because it’s the one we will be exploring. Click Install to move on. The installation wizard may request to close Internet Explorer – either allow it to do so, or close the application manually.

Installing Windows Mail Live mail alone amounts to a 53MB download, which will take a good few minutes to complete over broadband. If you kept other Windows Live application selections ticked in Step 3, this part of the process could take a fair bit longer. So, either sit watching while not much happens, or go do something else for 15 minutes or so. When the installation is complete, be sure to remove the ticks from the boxes on the penultimate dialogue box, unless you particularly want Bing set as your default search engine and MSN set as the default web browser home page.

The last step is to decide whether or not to sign up for a Windows Live ID. This is not required and, besides, you may already have one (Hotmail, Microsoft Messenger or Xbox Live accounts all require Windows Live IDs, for example). If you want one, click Sign up and follow the prompts. However, this is not important for our purposes, as we want to receive email from an existing account, so we will just click Close – and we suggest you do the same.

To launch Windows Live Mail, click Start followed by All Programs, then Windows Live and finally Windows Live Mail. The first time the program is launched the Add an E-mail Account wizard will be displayed. Type in the email address of the account from which you wish to collect email, enter the password, tick the Remember password box (otherwise the password will have to be entered each time email is synchronised) and then type your name into the Display Name box. Windows Live Mail should handle the configuration of the remaining options automatically but, if you have a particular desire or need to make manual settings, tick the box labelled ‘Manually configure server settings for this e-mail account’. Now click Next.

Unless the manual configuration box was ticked in Step 6, it should be safe now to click Finish and skip to Step 8. However, if the box was ticked – or Windows Live Mail’s attempt to automatically finish the setup fails – then this server settings dialogue box will be displayed. Check the support area of your internet service provider’s (ISP) website for the necessary server details and enter them here, then click Next followed by Finish.

What happens next depends largely on the details and type of email account added in Steps 6 and 7. For a non-Microsoft POP account, for example, the email may synchronise right away. If you’re using a Windows Live ID, on the other hand (an email address ending in ‘hotmail.co.uk’, for example), then Windows Live Mail may want to download a folder structure first – so click the Download button to allow it to proceed.

All being well, that should be it – Windows Live Mail is now set up and should be synchronising the email inbox/folders of the account just added. To add more email accounts, click the ‘Add e-mail account’ link on the left-hand side and then repeat Steps 6 through to 8. And that’s essentially the job done. If you want a run through of the basics of using Windows Live Mail, though, read on.

Email folders (Inbox, Sent, Deleted and so on) are listed in the left-hand pane – just left-click to switch between them. If you have set up multiple email accounts, click ‘Unread e-mail’ under the Quick view folders at the top left to quickly see all new messages. Message headers and summaries are displayed in middle pane, while the right-hand pane shows the content of the currently selected message. To view a different message, just click its header in the middle pane. Windows Live Mail is quite keen to protect users from malicious content, so images embedded in a message may be blocked: if you’re sure it’s safe to view them, click the Show images link at the top-right of the viewing pane.

To create a new message, just click the New button at the top left of the Windows Live Mail application window and write the email in the usual way – entering an email address into the To box, a subject and a message. Note that the Windows Live Mail compose window offers a bunch of Microsoft Word-like text-formatting tools that can be used to style the email if desired. Click Send when done.

In addition to email, Windows Live Mail can serve as both calendar and contacts manager. To view the calendar, for instance, click the Calendar link at the bottom left of the application window. Use the buttons at the top to switch between day, week and month view. To create a new event either double-click any date in the main window or right-click and select New event from the pop-up menu.

Now click the Contacts link at the bottom left of the Windows Live Mail window. As with email, use the left-hand pane to navigate through contacts, or click New to add someone’s details. Note that if you are using Windows Live ID account, the contacts will be automatically synchronised with the online service (for example, contacts created via Windows Live Mail appear in the Hotmail web interface, and vice versa).

Click the Feeds and Newsgroups links and follow the prompts if you want to use to Windows Live Mail to synchronise RSS feeds or old-school Usenet newsgroups. At any point, click Sync button at the top of the application window to have all accounts and feeds synchronised. Finally, click the Menus button, select Options and use the various tabs on the Options dialogue box to fine tune how the program works.