I don't doubt that some users have had migration and other issues from previous versions of WLM or OE, and I think MS have clearly failed these and other users through inadequate migration tools, support, or even fundamentally design of the product technical architecture. However, from a business user perspective I am quite impressed with WLM and especially its integration and syncing with Windows Live web accounts, including the amazing 25GB Skydrive storage and Windows Lie Mesh syncing, and syncing calendars. In fact my main mail tool of Outlook 2010 is drastically worse than than WLM in respect of IMAP support. On WLM the IMAP response is in a flash, whereas in Outlook 2010 you can literally wait 10 seconds or more for responses and even highlighting or deleting an email can be 5 seconds each. It's a complete foul up when having to edit or navigate many emails or folders....in fact I frequently switch back to WLM and it takes one tenth of the time to complete such IMAP filing tasks. The reaon I don't stay with WLM is that I must have advanced task management and integration with one business account that uses Exchange. By the way, I have tried all the alternatives, even Evolution on Linux, and whilst the MS problems are not fault-free, they are the best in my opinion, and I have been using business email for more than 20 years. Sure, there are improvements needed on WLM, but for a free product it is quite adequate and reliable in my experience. Your experience may of course be different.

Win Live Mail is a disaster on Win 7, i7, 64 bit, 8Gb ram. Painfully slow. Numerous problems. Outlook Express on XP, was a dream to use compared with WLM. Until recently, attachments could only be done one at a time & that took an eternity. Something got fixed but it's still a pain. Multiple attachments (eg PDF or DWG files < 100Kb still take forever to attach.) Maybe they go into a cloud on another planet and remain there. I tried to import contacts and emails from an old SATA HD to a new SATA HD, using the old HD as a slave. Finding the email *.iaf using the import tools did not work. So I had to export from the old HD to a file to DVD and to then import from there. Instead of importing directly to the existing folders of WML on the new HD as would have occurred with OE, a massive amount of unwanted RUBBISH was deposited into separate Storage folders. That resulted in the new WML becoming even slower. Thereafter, just trying to open any folder could take 30 seconds or more!!! Trying to transfer an email from an Inbox to a preferred folder now takes 10 or 20 or 30 seconds!!!! Trying to import emails and contacts to WML from OE on an XP was also a nightmare. Nothing would go where expected. Beats me. Worse is that my 13 yo kid uses XBox Live. His login is tied to my Win Live mail account which has been frozen for months now, ever since the security issue arose that resulted in MS ""cleaning"" everyone's accounts. Since then I've not been able to access the account despite struggling to do so. I've sent dozens of emails to various MS email addresses but cannot get their attention. The downloaded code that supposedly allows clients to reset their personal password does not work. I've tried dozens of times. My account has been rendered completely useless by MS's incompetence. Worse again is that my kid has not been able to use his XBox account because it has been frozen as well because it is chained to my Win Live Mail account. One email sent to XBox support produced an automated response saying they would usefully respond within 48 hours or somesuch but it never materialized. MS persists with wanting to charge me $30/quarter for my kid's XBox account, but NO ONE at MS is interested in actually fixing the problem password problem so that their products can actually be used. Maybe their data cloud is connected to a black hole that annihilates all complaints. No problem? No problemo! The only favourable (British spelling) response that I got was from a complaints survey firm in the US. They were sympathetic but they could not do anything for me. MS is an impenetrable monolith and may as well be headquarted on the Moon because that's how distant it is from our real world problems of its own making. If MS is interested in not having their long suffering customers departing in droves, they need to heed what the little people need. If MS cannot their act together soon, they won't have many customers in very short order.

When I upgraded from XP to 7 I had to find an email program to use since outlook express wasn't available anymore. Windows Live was my choice since it was a Microsoft program I felt it would work best with Windows 7. I like the program and it works similar to express so the learning curve was quick. The only problem I have with it is in forwardinng some emails with pictures included, sometime they are stripped from the email and sent as an attachment which ruins the context of the email. I do like the ability to send many pictures in an email using the skydrive and being able to select the size of the pictures sent up to the original size before attaching them to the email.

Virtually every attempt to send e-mail using this incredibly bad system is returned. the ""Edsel"" of e-mail. Who wrote this program? the troglodytes from the TV commercial?

Livemail on first sight seems o.k. But as you google for disappeared mail and/or accounts than you wil find too much complaints. I had also a very bad experience on a windows7 64bits system. Just in a day, after starting the computer all mail and account was gone! I suppose that windows-update or compressing mail is causing this problem, but I cannot prove it. Before I was using Thunderbird for almost 7 years, and never had any problems. So if you only uses Windows Live-mail, make back-ups before it's too late!

Just kidding. Its an awful program. I used it, and I didnt like it compared to earlier software Microsoft has made.

I have just downloaded windows live mail 2011 There is so much stuff missing that I had learned to love in the earlier version of windows live mail. BUT I don't get a notice when I am receiving message and it doesn't say no new messages when there are none Such a basic thing but it drives me nuts when I can't see it. And no menu bar What a crock.

I have been using this client for several months. I have several email addresses coming into the program. I recently discovered that something has corrupted my Local Folders where I have hundreds of emails saved. When I go to a folder, all the subject and date information is correct but ALL the messages in that folder are exactly the same as the last message put in there. I have lost many, many important messages. The unfortunate thing is, until I discovered this, I have been recommending this program to others and have installed it for many people. When I requested help from MS, their suggestion was to unstall and reconfigure the email account that was the problem. I don't believe that will help a thing since it is the folders that are in trouble. I am currently searching for an alternative email client. I absolutely will not recommend this program again. In my research I have discovered there are many others on the Internet with the same problem I have.

I have just helped my partner to set up a Private email list for her business - Using Live Mail I eventually found out how to do this after a lot of Googling and trial and error. I find it much more cumbersome and less user friendly than OE. For example, why name ""Mail Groups"" or ""Mailing Lists"" as ""CATEGORIES"", for goodness sake - A bit like calling a Menu Bar a ""Ribbon"". I'm afraid Live Mail follows Microsoft's tradition of recent years by making ""Upgrades"" feel like ""Downgrades"" - I am now actively seeking open source, share ware and other alternatives to Microsoft's over priced and unfriendly offerings, where possible.

On a windows 7 forum someone stated that wlmail 2011 was buggy. That's an understatement. I and others who installed this appalling piece of software have wasted time and money. For example: wlm does not close correctly (parts of wlm remain on desktop... only app that does this); when starting it freezes and says 'pls wait', when moving a mail to another folder it says ' a problem has occurred' and cannot read or delete the mail; the wlm index is messed up most of the time (cannot export mails to either wlm or outlook2010); imported addresses that contain an accent get corrupted;;;;;;; whomever approved the release of this product should be fired. In the meantime here's ten more clients who are leaving the MS world. What a shame, especially after ten years of pretty good products with XP and OE.

Having been extremely happy with Outlook Express for many years, using BT internet eMail , I am appalled at the awful Windows Live Mail, which is the only option with Windows 7 on my new HP computer. A major issue is automatic deletion of a previous email when a new one arrives (or is sent). Apart from the fussy layout, compared to OE6, another stupid design change is with Contact Categories, where one must send to ALL in a category, which doesn't make sense, I have therfore to select one or more names from my entire contact list. I wonder what clever design team thought of that change? Looking at the numerous complaints on the Web regarding Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail, I am at a loss to understand why Microsoft don't revert to Outlook Express or, at least, a Mail system which incorporates all the great features of OE that so many folk were happy with - and miss terribly. Come on Microsoft, get your act in order!

I cannot stay with this email application. Livemail 2009 was a dream compared to this 2011 version. My hobby is digital Photography. Part of it is to be able to share with friends and family. I was able to merely select a groups of thumbnails in Qimage, and select ""email"". Qimage would open Live mail 2009 and with pictures attached. I would address it, and send. With 2011, it either ZIPS my pictures, or sends thumbnails, and puts my images on SKYDRIVE? Their server? What a mess! The people I send to are lost! I have tried everything! There are 4 ways to send photos in 2011, and none works with multiple images. Any word if this will be reworked in the next version? I went back to version 2009 in the meantime. Anyone have a fix for 2011? Thanks, Fred

Why Microsoft chose to replace Outlook Express with Windows Live Mail is totalling beyond me. It seems to me that OE had great features for email management and certainly had the hooks to include a junk file filter system at least as effective as WLM without the massive overheads which we are now forced to live with. Bloated does not begin to describe how difficult and slow WLmail is and if there was a viable alternative I would suggest it. Bring back Outlook Express pullease!!!!!

I went from Vista to Windows 7, and was forced to go to Live Mail. Wow, what a comedown. Don't care what you thought about Vista, this email program is one MS should be ashamed to have it's name on. At least Windows Mail worked. Takes forever to open new mail, sent messages disappear, and the menu is full of things you will never use.. How MS offer something like this is beyond me. Find another email program like Thunderbird. I cannot even get answers from MS about any of my problems.

I loved outlook express. It was easy to understand and use. The trouble with designers is that they change for the sake of change and to justify their positions. Very often they're not as smart or as attentive as the original designers and they make basic mistakes. When I was forced to go from Outlook Express to WinMail, I lost the significant convenience of being able to organize my contacts into folders. (e.g. Friends, Business, Theatre, etc.). And when I transferred my emails I wound up with a mess that took a long time to straighten out. I finally adapted to winmail, then I bought a new computer with Windows 7 and found myself saddled with a new email system I didn't want. This system is the worst yet, visually complicated and unattractive. The transfer of my emails into ended up in a total mess. Why don't they get a transfer system that works properly? I've spent 2 days trying to straighten it out. Why doesn't something as basic as this work easily? And (I think) I'm still unable to organize my contacts into folders. Why can't they learn to leave well-enough alone? Why can't I keep my old system, if I prefer it. What is this forced-feeding of windows live all about? Who does it help? Who has time to use it? We're not all computer junkies, you know. Microsoft changed the world and for that I'm grateful. I loved the early Microsoft, which was so excellently represented in XP and Outlook Express. But now I'm really fed up with the current offerings and their excesses that I don't need or want. Maybe the Mac OS is more stable, simpler and better designed. The next time I buy a computer I'll look into it and I won't care if it costs more. I don't want any more headaches brought on by designers who change things for the sake of change and, especially, those who design for geeks and have no clue to the average person's wishes.

I'm a senior. I was used to Outlook Express on my last computer and I loved it! Now I have Windows Live Mail. I hate it! I can't locate any of my BCC emails; slow to send; can't locate the recent ones I sent; don't like my emails all grouped together and in general it's just one BIG PAIN. I may be retired but this program requires way too much time to operate and the frustration is over the top. What to do? You tell me. As much as I enjoy using a computer this is just not worth it.

I have been receiving persistant, obscene junk mail consistantly. In spite of using 'Actions' to block sender and senders domain nothing happens. Live mail has advised me that if I pay about $50.00 it can be done. I refuse to pay for a service which is included in the Live Mail page. MANAGEMENT - DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!!

I was very happy with my hotmail account. Then the site forced me to create a Windows Live login. I logged in and went to my hotmail account only to find that all my messages, contacts and other information were gone. I inputted a question on the forum, asking that my information be resotred but my question wasn't answered. Now I'll need to tell all my contacts to quit using my hotmail account.

Simple put ,,, WLM is a piece of junk. It constantly fails every other day to connect and load incoming emails. Deleting the account setup and recreating has never fixed the problem. I am now using the web client for hot mail or Mozilla Thunderbird instead. It's sad that Microsoft can't create a stable email program.

Because Outlook Express is not available in Windows versions after XP, I had to use a different e-mail client and decided to try Windows Live Mail (WLM). I find it far more cumbersome/more keystrokes to get things done than with OE. For example, it provides options to place a Reply icon in the Quick Access toolbar, but none for two that I (and I suspect most e-mailers) use often: Reply All and Forward. To do either, you have to right-click the e-mail and select them from the pop-up menu. It is substantially slower (on a laptop with a Core I5 CPU vs. my 3-yr.-old XP desktop!!) to download my messages after boot-up in the morning. And like OE, if you choose to forward e-mails to large groups of peoplr, but want to use Bcc: instead of To: to prevent any one of them from seeing the addresses of the others, there is no column in Sent Items to show the Bcc: addressees. . . so no record of who you actually sent the message to. I would have thought by now M$ would have fixed that, given their presumed concerned for confidentiality/identity theft/etc.

It's brain-dead; it can't remember that it's already downloaded emails, and not only tries to download them again, but attempts to download tens of thousands of emails from an account that doesn't even have that many emails in it!!! But of course, it's not even consistent with THAT! You can start a sync again, and it does it correctly, but the next day (or even an hour later) it's forgotten again, and just keeps downloading nothing... the counter just sits there counting I don't know what! The latest upgrade has destroyed it's ability to distinguish junk mail from Contact mail! It puts Junk in my Inbox, even when I've checked the box that says ""email from contacts ONLY in Inbox""!!! Then it puts Contact email in the Junk boxes. There's apparently no point to clicking ""Not Junk"", or ""Junk""... it will ignore your choices even when getting additional mail from the same sources. I'll take Outlook Express anyday over this garbage.

I was used to Outlook Express and Windows Mail. My new laptop 64 bits with Windows 7 offers me Windows LIVE Mail and nothing else. I became crazy ! Then, I decided to change my approach to Windows LIVE Mail. I studied it closely and used the trial and error method. As a matter of fact it is simple and very good. I feel that Microsoft should not make changes without helping with a memory link to help the average Users to follow the logic from their previous mails to the new Windows LIVE Mail. MS put the same things from the previous Windows Mail under some kind of hidden hood in the new Windows LIVE Mail. All people are not technical !

A dreadful, cumbersome program. Unnecessarily complex. It has to be rewritten !

Program will not save messages (in email format) to other locations on the computer. Program will not open (in email format with hyperlinks and attachments) older messages retreived and saved in MS Outlook. Bad program. It is not for me.

The new 2011 version of windows live mail is WONDERFUL. MUCH much better than previous versions. I LOVE it

I updated?? from Windows XP and Outlet email to Windows 7 and Live Mail. Windows 7 seems to work pretty well but I am very frustrated with the typing delay of Live Mail. I can type three or four letters ahead of what appears on the screen, and the same works for the backspace: a big delay. The delay is only present while in Live Mail and no one can tell me how to get rid of it. I downloaded Mozilla Firefox and it worked perfectly, EXCEPT I can't transfer all my email addresses into it. I should have just stayed with the old computer, XP, and Outlet, and been a little more patient with the speed of downloads. I am definitely badmouthing Live Mail until THEY solve my problem.

All these reviews complaining they can't attach music... If I received an email that started playing music (or had a chintzy background) I'd probably use the Delete and block sender button straight away! Outlook Express was fine in its day, but since Microsoft made Hotmail incompatible (for technical reasons I believe) I've been happy with Live Mail. The search functionality works great, and the Quick Views allow me to view all my email accounts in one virtual inbox which is brilliant in its simplicity. So far, the 2011 version seems to have all the features I use. I don't like the big toolbar (I think they're calling it a ribbon bar) but in time I'll get used to it. So to all the complainers - give it a while, or try something else like Thunderbird. Just don't expect anything else to work so well with hotmail!

Where have the groups for contacts gone? To many people, myself included, being able to put my contacts into groups, and then just type in the group name to get all of the addresses within that group, is absolutely essential, so I will be looking for something far more suitable for me.

This review covers Version 2011 (Build 15.4.3502.0922). I have used Outlook and Outlook Express for many years and was frustrated when I moved to (Windows Live Mail (WLM) because many features I took for granted are no longer there. First off, it is a basic email package that does what casual people need. It sends and receives mail, has storage folders, multiple account support, has a safe/blocked senders list, filters spam. Unfortunately it doesn't have many options, you only get the one way they programmed it. Want to change the colors? can't. Want to change the rules for incoming messages? can't. Want to change the way spam is handled? can't. etc. etc. The difficulty in doing basic tasks is frustrating: want to print an email? I had to search for the print function (its hidden behind a blue square, while useless functions like ""Flag"" have giant icons). Want to attach a picture? can't right-click on a picture and select ""send"" any more because it actually sends a link to an online album the sender has to join to see, and sending a picture is now hidden behind the Insert menu. Some of my frustration may be about Live mail itself, rather than the client. About 1 out of every 10 time it refuses to log on, saying my password is incorrect, and for me the deal-breaker is the Live mail spam filter. The Live mail spam filter cannot be turned off - which sounds like a good thing unless you are using a mail client such as the WLM, then it is a bad thing because the spam is never sent to you. I lost a job because the spam filter decided the msg was spam and never sent it to my mail client. Instead you are expected to log on to live.com and check the spam folder by hand every day. In summary, think about your email habits and what level of user you are: if you are a basic read/write/delete person this program may be right for you. If you have inbox rules, check your spams for errors, do anything advanced I doubt this program will fill your needs.

WLM2011 is absolutely one piece of junk. If possible I would like to uninstall and return to the earlier version but alas probably nay. One of the first things I looked for was the option to include music but apparently that is no longer available. It is incredible how supposedly smart people can screw up a reasonably good program. There must have been at least 50 'gurus' working this and each was assigned the task of creating a different button or whistle. Extremely confusing and time warped.

I recently installed WLM 2011 and discovered to my horror that the message rules functionality has been removed! Maybe MS doesn't get it, but new app versions usually add functionality, not take it away. Now I'm just wondering if all my carefully crafted rules from years of using OE and Windows Mail have been lost. What a major disappointment!!

The vcard functionality in Windows Live Mail (who thought up that name anyway?) is horrible. Simple fields like ""office phone"" and ""work email"" are on different tabs. The worst thing is that the contact database becomes corrupt. Google ""The contact information could not be saved""

The new release using ribbons is somewhat better than the previous one, but still can't match OE ease of use. It has just a very limited and dumb remote help. Worst of all, its spam filter looks to be broken. Despite being setup in the configurations, no spam is catched and sent to the Junk folder. It also still is unable to appy rules to IMAP accounts.

While Windows Live Mail 2011 is a significant upgrade over WLM 2009, its interface is still cumbersome when compared with Vista's Windows mail, Outlook, OE and Monzilla's Thunderbird. So much wasted screen space makes it a poor choice for netbooks and other small-screen computers Being MS marketing driven, WLM 2011 will not support XP, requiring that customers install the even more cumbersome earlier versions of WLM on their XP machines. This is certainly not the E-mail choice for organizations supporting multiple computer generations, including XP, Vista and Win7. It is a shame as WLM could have been a great product had MS included the concise classic OE human interface and had MS marketing not taken over WLM's design and deployment. shame, shame, shame.

If there is a good thing about this product is that it loaded seamlessly. Oh yeah, and it looks pretty. But I long for the days of Windows Mail. I can even put up with the multiple mail boxes for each address, though a pain for sure, but some of the steps backward are not acceptable. As a photographer I relied heavily on backgrounds and adding music to a lot of my mail. Gone! There is no longer any stationery, or formatting of background photos, or colors, or sound. I have always stuck with whatever MS made available since day one, but this is going back to OE version 1. I must have the ability to create backgrounds, and so for the very first time I am going to dump a Windows mail product for one that actually gives me some control over what I create. Bummer that. I have always been a defender of MS up until now. They just can't go back that far and expect us to blindly accept their lack of features.

Instead of improving Outlook or Outlook Express, they reinvented the wheel...and it is inferior. Then they buried it in Windows 7 at a location that eluded my instincts and my logic. I looked for Outlook Express for a long time, until I remembered that the name changed to something irrational' Oh yeah,,,,""Windows Live Mail"". But WLM did not appear on the list of programs. By the time I found it, I had come to the conclusion that the creation of this inferior email program was intentional. MS obviously paid someone to design it to frustate users. It really got ugly when I tried to import contacts from Verizon.....even the Verizon techs could not accomplish the task. I love change......unless it is change for the worse.

This program is slow to send to the outbox hard to put files in and also background music

This so-called email program is a piece of garbage for anone who uses email a lot and demands efficient function. The Quickview Inbox it offers is an aggregation of every email you ever created in draft form or received, and it grows forever - in other words, it could grow to 30 gigabytes and 200,000 messages. Which can take 60 seconds or more to load. No way to shrink it - if you delete something out of there then it deletes out of any folder you sorted it into for storage. Huge mail folders in Microsoft's mail have always corrupted and resulted in lost email, and I mean lost forever. You can't create sub folders within quickview and drag stuff out of that inbox and into them, so can't shrink the humongous Quickview inbox that way either. It has MULTIPLE inboxes!!! One for EACH of your email addresses. Do you really want to have to check 10 inboxes if you are like most people and have multiple email addresses? If you want to get to what it calls ""storage"" folders, you have to scroll alllllll the way down past allllll those multiple email addresses to the very bottom of the folder view to find them and use them. This program is a piece of garbage if you are used to the efficiency and speed of Outlook Express and it offers NOTHING. I have been unable to find a substitute for Outlook Express - that is what I came to this web page for.

If you like to spend lots of time clicking buttons to finally get to an email that any other normal program like Outlook would have opened automatically from contacts in your address book with just one click- Live Mail is FOR you- Have emailed/web linked to Live (Hotmail actually) support and their suggestions were NO help- It still takes from 4 to 3 clicks of different things like ""Mark as Safe"", Full View, Open Message and Show content to actually get to see a message- YUCK! Bad Design

Came to Windows Live Mail from 15 years with Outlook Express. Was forced to switch to Outlook in frustration. My configuration comprises three mail accounts and around 40 mail storage folders, organized into 10-12 major categories, for personal and business email. 1. The visual interface is hard to read, the pastel shades wash out the text, and there are NO icons. The user has to rely on the tiny text for all menu functions. 2. There is an illusion that you can change the faded pastels in the More colors of the Colorizer [small paint brush]. But this feature DOES NOT WORK. You change the color and nothing happens! 3. Filing emails is terribly inconvenients since the folders that reside on your computer are below the three email accounts, each with their own Inbox, Drafts, Sent Mail, Junk Mail, and Deletec Items. 4. You can get an integrated version of the major email boxes with the Quick View folder and then move the individual email accounts below the mail folders, BUT... When you re-open WML, the file folders appear below the mail folders again. 5. The send/receive function is hidden in the Sync menu but if there is a Send All function, I did not find it. 6. The only good thing about WML is that it tranferred perfectly all the account settings, address book, storage folder structure, and emails from Outlook Express. Bottom line, this is an awful piece of software and earlier favorable reviews, circa 2007 and 2008 are meaningless since MS changed the interface from what was tested by the influential software critics like Mossberg. Switch to Thunderbird or Oultook if you like Outlook Express. Uninstall WML asap - I have.

Windows Live Mail is a sad error that Microsoft made in Windows7. Folks have been using OE for a long time and the changes made are not an improvement. Perhaps OE had some security problems/? why not improbe OE? Worse yet, Microsofr made OE unusable in Window7!! That is absolutely stupid. Result? Forced folks to go to something else, like Thunderbird.....

Unless your volume of email is very small, this email program is a frustrating hassle. I would love to see a smart upgrade of Outlook Express, but this isn’t it. If you have a lot of email accounts, contact folders, or emails to transfer, you will find that Windows Live Mail does not neatly interface with the previous generation of MS email programs for transference or upgrades. Despite neat, organized categories in the prior MS email program that is being transferred, WLM dumps your emails and contacts into a single folder which is a massive mess. In WLM, it is no longer possible to customize and organize multiple folders. The addition of a `draft`, `sent`, `junk`, and `deleted` folder for EVERY mail account consumes a huge amount of valuable space. Additionally, it is a lot of extra work to check every `junk mail` folder for EACH email account. These multiple junk mail and delete folders are a mistake waiting to happen. You WILL mistakenly delete important emails. Why is the tacky ""emoticons"" automatically included in this program? Why is a dinky calendar included? This program seems to be designed for elementary school children. Instead, why not make the program more robust with great practical features instead of smiley faces? If people want smiley faces and lame calendars, they can download their own program. The WLM program transferred the entire SPAM folder of blocked emails automatically into the new WLM email folder, mixing previously deleted SPAM emails with saved emails, thus creating an enormous amount of additional work. These are just a few of the complaints, disappointments, and HEADACHES that I have concerning WLM. I don't see how Microsoft can be proud of this product. Microsoft has not delivered a `WOW` factor in a long time. VISTA was awful.... Windows Live Mail isn't great.... `Plodders` should not be synonymous with MS, but that is what they have become - at least in this area.

WLM is a bit simple minded I'm afraid. Have you used it at all? You try copying an address into MS Word - or indeed any word processor. Likewise you try mail merging. Outlook Express is far superior. Neither can you copy and paste a folder into a second .wab file as you can with OE in order to create a merge file for a subset of your addresses. Even the old and quite good Windows Address Book mail merge with MS Works no longer ""works"" with WLM. This allows home users to mail merge with groups. I have found WLM dire - heaven help us if this is the end result of 15 years of web email. Perhaps MS want even home users to use Outlook.

It is a good start and could be a good mail program. Slow, washed out colors and a poor excuse for a contact list. The contact list needs to be so we can set up different list that don't interact with each other. I would like to be able to edit, backup, and restore each list individually. As it is now if you try to break up the master list you can try to move a contact from the main list and you wind up with the contact in both list. If you remove it from the master it will remove it from both. Yesterday I opened WLM and discovered that my contact list had totally vanished over night----don't have a clue. I hope MS will fix the bugs soon, the program could turn out to be a very good one.

Excellent - great improvement on Outlook Express, friendlier and more flexible than Thunderbird. Filters, message search, contacts etc. work very well, and message composition is the best I've seen. My only complaint is that the junk filter seems a bit over-enthusiastic, and slow to learn that false positives are in fact false, despite using the ""not junk"" control.