The Two Outlooks for Email

Author: Dilip Dahanukar

Most of us have both the Outlook programs on our computer: the Microsoft Outlook and the Outlook Express. On the face of it both look more-or-less the same, and few of us actually take the trouble to find out their plus and minus points. But I did examine both of them carefully with surprising results, and I would like to share my findings with you. You will certainly be able to get more out of both of them with this information.

Recently my Norton Anti-Virus (NAV) detected a virus coming through email. This happened as my preview pane was open in the Inbox and it opened the virus email automatically as soon as it was downloaded. The NAV could not repair the file so I had to delete the infected file. I found to my utter horror that deleting the file disabled my browser. It also disabled my CD writer. I had to save my data using Iomega 250MB zip drive which fortunately worked but only in the slow SAFE mode of Windows! Ultimately I had to Quick Restore my Compaq computer. It took me 2 days to reload various programs and data! This could have been avoided if I had taken a few simple precautions. I have written out these precautions towards the end of this article.

Differences between the two Outlooks:

1.Outlook Express (OE in short) comes with Internet Explorer browser, whereas MS Outlook (MSO in short) is a part of MS OFFICE.

2.OE can download news from newsgroups. MSO cannot.

3.OE uses "identities" to configure mail account. Identities allow multiple people to use OE without sharing a common inbox. The messages are saved separately for each identity. When you input your identity it opens a full and separate OE program. When you switch identities, the program is closed (exited), and again a full and separate OE program is opened. This feature allows multiple users to have their own password-protected email program on one single computer. This feature is not available with MSO.

4.MSO has IPM features such as calendar, tasks and notes. These features are not present in OE.

5.MSO can activate the feature "don't download messages larger than - ---KB" Sets a maximum size for messages that will be downloaded. Large messages can take a long time to download and can increase your connection time. If you use a local area network (LAN), this setting is ignored. It's a shame that the setting is ignored for LAN. I find this is very useful to firewall virus file attachments, which are usually above 100KB in size.

6.In MSO as well as OE, you can select all the messages in a folder by opening the folder and clicking Select All from the Edit menu. But its only in MSO that you can do a Save As. With more than one message selected, the Save As feature is de-activated in OE. Thus when you Save As in MSO, you can save all the messages in the folder in one text file. This not only makes it quick to save the messages, but they can then be opened in notepad, WordPad or MS Word, which all have find or search feature which makes locating of any message a very simple task

7.MSO can use any of the MS OFFICE formats to New Send mail. MS OFFICE Access, Power Point, Excel, or Word. This is not possible with OE.

Similarities:

1.Both OE and MSO are very similar to their mail receiving and filing function.

2.Both OE and MSO do offer backgrounds through"new mail using…" menu.

3.Preview pane could be kept shut when inbox is opened in both OE and MSO

4.Configuring accounts is very similar.

5.Both programs can disable automatic download of emails.

6.Both can have multiple accounts in the same user or identity.

OE is better for:

1.Multiple users using the same computer.

2.For news from newsgroups on news server.

MSO is better for:

1.Large volume of emails to be saved in text format for easy accessibility.

2.For sending emails in MS OFFICE formats.

Tips for configuring both OE and MSO to block viruses

1.Switch off the preview panel in the INBOX. This prevents any virus getting into your system by automatic opening.

2.Switch off the"include this account when receiving mail or synchronizing" for every account you have. You can do this by disabling (no tick mark) on this feature, which you will find by menu chain: Tools, Accounts, account-name, properties, General. This will ensure that the mail is not flowing-in automatically.

3.Before downloading mail, access the mail on the net. Most of these webmail sites show the size of the files, which unfortunately is not a feature with either OE or MSO. Any mail over 100KB is suspect should be deleted. Also delete any junk mail. Only download and receive mail that you want to save on your computer.

4.To download and receive mail, don't click on Send/Receive on the mail Tool Bar, but go into Tools, and move the curser on "Send/Receive" and move right to get a sub-menu where you select the precise account, with which you want to send or receive.

5.Send by clicking on the small arrow next to"Send", and selecting the precise account by which to send. The mail will wait in the Outbox till you send through the Tools, Send/Receive menu as given in 3 above.

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About the author:
Dilip Dahanukar is an experienced author. His all-new eBook “How to Write Pop-Up Emails” is a simple step-by-step tutorial. A Template makes it even easier! http://www.netbizzquick.com/WhatPop.htm Check it out! Contact the author at mailto:dilipsd@vsnl.in