Larry said:
I have always used OE to access newsgroups. We converted to Win7
and Outlook 2010 at the office and I no longer have a
newsreader. Is it possible to smoothly run OE concurrently with
Outlook if using it for just the newsreader function? I could
just setup the News Account. Thanks.
When it was supported, Outlook Express (OE) came bundled with
Internet Explorer (IE). OE has long been unsupported (which does
not equate to unusable). You cannot get OE separately from IE.
They came bundled together. As of IE7 and later, OE is no longer
bundled with IE. IE6 was the last version that bundled OE with it.
Microsoft isn't going to bundle unsupported products with supported
products.
Windows XP comes with IE6 as its baseline version hence why OE is
available with that operating system. Vista comes with IE7 and
Windows 7 comes with IE8 as their baseline versions of that web
browser. You cannot install earlier versions of IE on those
Windows platforms.
You could run VirtualPC, VMWare Server, VirtualBox, or other virtual
machine managers (VMMs) on Vista/7 and then install a pre-Vista
version of Windows in a virtual machine (VM) to have OE running
inside that virtual machine. That requires installing the VMM,
installing pre-Vista Windows in a virtual machine (VM), and then
load that VM when you want to run OE. According to Microsoft's
EULAs, you will need another license of Windows to run it inside a
VM. That is a lot of work and nuisance along with the expense of 2
licenses for Windows (host and guest) to run a long-dead e-mail
client.
Windows 7 doesn't include a bundled e-mail or newsreader client.
You'll have to choose one and install it. For the Professional and
Ultimate editions of Windows 7, a license of Windows XP SP-3 is
included called XP Mode. If you install XP Mode and then Windows
VirtualPC (WVPC), you will have Windows XP available as a guest OS
running inside a virtual machine. Windows XP comes with IE6 so OE6
will be available; see
http://preview.tinyurl.com/Win7xpmode-IE6OE6.
Note: Windows 7's XP Mode had required the CPU to support hardware-
assisted virtualization (
http://preview.tinyurl.com/wiki-CPUvm).
Microsoft removed this limitation and now permits software-based
virtualization (
http://preview.tinyurl.com/XPmode-noHdweReq). Some
VMMs will run faster using their own software code than the
virtualization extensions added to the CPU (e.g., VirtualBox);
however, VirtualPC 2007 is not so blessed. A guest OS running in a
VM is significantly slower than the host OS. Software-based VMs
are slower than hardware-assisted VMs.
Windows Mail (WM) is the e-mail client included in Windows Vista.
Windows Live Mail (WLM) is the Microsoft's free replacement for both
OE and WM which were also free. Windows 7 does not come with an
e-mail and/or newsreader client pre-installed so you will have to
install one.
WLM download:
http://download.live.com
After installing just WLM, go into Add/Remove Programs and
uninstall the unwanted extra foistware that Microsoft shoves onto
your host, like the SignOn Assistant. While WLM is reminiscent of
OE, it has some functional differences. For help, the WLM
newsgroup is at:
microsoft.public.windows.live.mail.desktop
NOTE: As of version 15 for WLM, Microsoft blundered by removing
support for quoting of original content in a plain-text reply, as
required by RFC 2646/3676, section 4.5. That is, Microsoft chose to
become non-compliant to an over decade old RFC. Indentation using
the quoting character ">" was available in prior versions of WLM
(and also in OE) for plain-text replies. It is gone as of v15 for
WLM which results in lack of differentiation between new content in
a reply to the content cited from the message to which you are
replying (i.e., it's all flat now). Microsoft has screwed up WLM as
of v15 so it is recommended to use a different (i.e., non-Microsoft)
e-mail & news client solution.
There are plenty of other e-mail and newsreader clients available.
Many e-mail clients are free: Thunderbird (and derivatives; e.g.,
Sunbird), Pegasus Mail, Opera & Seamonkey (web/email/news client),
Eudora (crippleware), and PIM programs that include e-mail
functions, like EssentialPIM, and "cloud" desktops with e-mail,
like Zimbra Desktop. Also see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-mail_clients. For a
webmail provider (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, your ISP's web
interface), you only need a web browser and no local e-mail client.
For newsreaders, there are many free choices: Forte Agent (don't
bother with the ancient and crippled free version), Xnews, 40tude
Dialog, XanaNews, MesNews, and Gravity. Clients like NewsBin,
GrabIt, and Newsrover are designed for culling attachments from
[multiple] posts in binary groups and are bad choices for
conversational newsreaders. Also see
http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Internet/Clients/Usenet/ and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Usenet_newsreaders. You
can also ask in the alt.software.newsreaders for more help
specifically with newsreaders.
