If you’re like many people today who are using the Internet to communicate with friends and business associates, you probably have piles of information (names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, etc.) that you need often. Unless this information is in one convenient place, and can be accessed immediately, the information becomes ineffective and you become unproductive. Microsoft Windows Mail (the successor to Outlook Express) solves these problems by integrating management and organization tools into one simple system. Windows Vista includes Microsoft Windows Mail, a powerful program for managing electronic mail (known as e-mail), and contact information like names, and e-mail addresses.

Using Windows Mail with an Internet connection allows you to accomplish several tasks:

Whether you want to exchange e-mail with colleagues and friends or join newsgroups to trade ideas and information, Windows Mail provides you with the tools you need. When you install Windows Vista, a menu item for Windows Mail appears in the left column of the Start menu and the All Programs submenu. The first time you start Windows Mail, you need to set up an e-mail account. The Connect to the Internet wizard walks you through the process. You can set Windows Mail as your default e-mail program so that whenever you click an e-mail link on a Web page or choose the mail command in your Web browser, Windows Mail opens. You can also set Windows Mail as your default news reader so that when you click a newsgroup link on a Web page or choose the news reader command in your Web browser, Windows Mail opens.

Before you can set up an e-mail account, you need your account name, password, e-mail server type, and the names of your incoming and outgoing e-mail servers from your ISP or network administrator. The Connect to the Internet wizard helps you connect to one or more e-mail servers. Windows Mail allows you to send and retrieve e-mail messages from different types of e-mail servers, which are the locations where your e-mail is stored before you access it. Windows Mail supports three types of accounts: mail, newsgroups, and directory services. A newsgroup is an electronic forum where people with a common interest can share ideas, ask and answer questions, and comment on and discuss any subject. Directory services are online address books that are typically provided by large organizations. You can set up multiple accounts in Windows Mail.

Windows Mail can import contacts, mail messages, and account settings from many of the most popular e-mail programs. You can also export your messages or Windows Contacts information from Windows Mail to work with other programs.

A contact is a person or company that you communicate with. One contact can often have several mailing addresses, phone numbers, or e-mail addresses. You can store this information in Windows Contacts (New!) along with other detailed information, such as job title, cell phone number, and Web page addresses. You can organize your contacts into folders or into contact groups, which are groups of related people with whom you communicate regularly.

E-mail is becoming the primary form of written communication for many people. E-mail messages follow a standard memo format, with fields for the sender, recipient, date, and subject of the message. To send an e-mail, you need to enter the recipient’s e-mail address, type a subject, then type the message itself. For a personal touch, you can also create an e-mail message with stationery designs. You can send the same e-mail to more than one individual, to a contact group, or to a combination of individuals and groups. Before you send the e-mail, you can set a priority flag (high, normal, or low) to convey the message’s importance.

If you’re tired of the typical bland, unexciting look of e-mail, Windows Mail has the answer—Windows Mail stationery. This feature allows you to create e-mail messages with their own colorful background and font styles. You can also customize your messages with a signature or by attaching your business card. A signature is any file, text file with your signature, or photo of yourself that you choose. Several stationery styles are included with Windows Mail.

You can receive e-mail anytime—even when your computer is turned off. You can retrieve your e-mail manually or set Windows Mail to do so automatically. When you start Windows Mail, the program checks for new e-mail. It continues to check periodically while the program is open. New messages appear in boldface in the Inbox along with any messages you haven’t moved or deleted. Message flags may appear next to a message, which indicate a certain priority, the need for follow up, or an attachment. Windows Mail blocks images and other potentially harmful content from automatically downloading in an e-mail message from unknown people. Blocked items are replaced with a red “x”. You can use the Information Bar or modify the e-mail to view the blocked content. You can respond to a message in two ways: reply to it, which creates a new message addressed to the sender(s) and other recipients; or forward it, which creates a new message you can send to someone else. In either case, the original message appears in the response.

You can use e-mail to easily share a file, such as a picture or a document by attaching it to an e-mail. Upon receiving the e-mail, the recipient can open the file in the program that created it or save it. Make sure you know and trust the sender before you open it, because it might contain a virus or other security threat. It’s important to keep your antivirus software up-to-date. The Attachment Manager provides security information to help you understand more about the file you are downloading. If an attachment is considered safe, Windows Mail makes it completely available to you. Examples of safe attachments are text files (.txt) and graphic files, such as JPEGs (.jpg) and GIFs (.gif). If an attachment is potentially unsafe, such as an executable program (.exe), screensavers (.scr) or script files (including .vbs), Windows Mail displays a notice on the Information Bar and blocks it so you will not be able to open it without taking explicit action. If Windows Mail can’t determine the safety of an attachment, it displays a security warning (when you try to move, save, open, or print the file) with information about the file.

A common problem with using e-mail is an overcrowded Inbox. To keep your Inbox organized, you should move messages you want to save to other folders and subfolders, delete messages you no longer want, and create new folders as you need them. Storing incoming messages in other folders and deleting unwanted messages make it easier to see the new messages you receive and to keep track of important messages. If you can’t find a message, you can use the Search box (New!) to quickly find it. If you have not finished composing a message, you can save it in the Drafts folder and work on it later.

When you delete an e-mail message, Windows Mail simply moves it into the Deleted Items folder. If you want to recover a deleted message, you just have to retrieve it from the Deleted Items folder. To get rid of a message permanently, you need to open the Deleted Items folder, select the message, and click Delete. Windows Mail automatically places e-mail messages in the Sent Items folder every time you send them. You will want to periodically open the Sent Items folder and delete messages so your mail account doesn’t get too large. You can also use maintenance options to help you clean up.

Junk e-mail can seem like a never ending battle. It keeps piling up. Windows Mail provides the Junk E-mail Options dialog box to help you reduce the amount of junk e-mail you receive. You can set a junk e-mail protection level that makes sense to you, from no filtering to only the safe senders list. If you receive junk e-mail from international domains or languages, you can quickly and easily block them. E-mail has become the new way to commit fraud using spoof sites and addresses. These types of e-mail are called phishing. You can set options in Windows Mail that can help protect you again potential phishing attacks.

If you receive unwanted e-mail from a specific address or domain, you can block all messages from that sender. On the other hand, if you find a wanted e-mail in the Junk E-mail folder, you can mark it as safe and not as junk. When you mark a message as junk, Windows Mail moves the message into the Junk E-mail folder, where you can browser through or delete it later. You can mark individual or groups of messages as blocked or safe. If you want to add, edit, or remove addresses or domains from the Safe or Block Senders list, you can use the Junk E-mail Options dialog box, which you can access from the Tools menu.

Windows Mail can direct incoming messages that meet criteria to other folders in the Folders list rather than to your Inbox. For example, your friend loves sending you funny e-mail, but you often don’t have time to read it right away. You can set message rules to store any messages you receive from your friend in a different folder so they won’t clutter your Inbox. When you are ready to read the messages, you simply open the folder and access the messages just as you would messages in the Inbox. If you receive unwanted e-mail from a specific address, you can block all messages from that sender.

A newsgroup is an electronic forum where people from around the world with a common interest can share ideas, ask and answer questions, and comment on and discuss any subject. You can find newsgroups on almost any topic. Before you can participate in a newsgroup, you must select a news server. A news server is a computer located on the Internet, which stores newsgroup messages, also called articles, on different topics. Each news server contains several newsgroups from which to choose. The Internet Connection Wizard walks you through the process of selecting a news server. This wizard also appears the first time you use Windows Mail News. To complete the wizard process, you might need an account name and password, and you need to choose a news server that you want to use.

When you add a news server account, Windows Mail retrieves a list of newsgroups available on that server. Once you select a newsgroup, you can view its contents, or, if you expect to return to the newsgroup often, you can subscribe to it. Subscribing to a newsgroup places a link to the group in the Folders list, providing easy access to the newsgroup. If you find that you are no longer interested in a newsgroup, you can unsubscribe from it. You can also view a newsgroup without subscribing to see if you might want to add it to your Folders list.

Once you have subscribed to a newsgroup, you will want to view its messages. Click the newsgroup to display messages, and then click the message you want to read. Newsgroup messages appear in the Preview pane, just as e-mail messages do. If a plus sign (+) appears to the left of a newsgroup message, then the message contains a conversation thread. A conversation thread consists of the original message on a particular topic along with any responses that include the original message. Icons appear next to the news messages to indicate whether a conversation thread is expanded or collapsed, and whether or not it has been read.

After you become familiar with a newsgroup, you might decide that you don’t want to retrieve messages from a particular person, about a specific subject, of a certain length, or older than a certain number of days. This is called filtering newsgroup messages.

Part of the fun of newsgroups is that you can participate in an ongoing discussion, respond privately to a message’s author, or start a new thread yourself by posting your own message on a topic of interest to you. If you post a message to a newsgroup and then change your mind, you can cancel the message. Keep in mind that if someone has already downloaded the message, canceling the message will not remove it from that person’s computer.

Windows Calendar (New!) is an electronic version of the familiar paper daily planner. You can schedule time for completing specific tasks, meetings, vacations, holidays, or for any other activity with the Calendar. You can change the Calendar to show activities for the Day, Work Week (five business days), Week (all seven days), or Month. The Appointment area serves as a daily planner where you can schedule activities by the day, work week, full week, or month. Appointments are scheduled activities such as a doctor’s visit, and occupy a block of time in the Appointment area. Events are activities that last 24 hours or longer, such as a seminar, and do not occupy blocks of time in your calendar. Instead, they appear in a banner at the beginning of a day. The bottom left pane of Calendar view displays the tasks associated with the days displayed in the calendar.

In Windows Calendar, an appointment (New!) is any activity you schedule that doesn’t include other people or resources. An event is any appointment that lasts one or more full days (24-hour increments), such as a seminar, a conference, or a vacation. You enter appointment or event information in the same box; however, when you schedule an event, the All-day appointment check box is selected; the check box is cleared when you schedule an appointment. If an appointment or event recurs on a regular basis, such as a meeting, you can set the Recurrence option. If you need a reminder, you can also set the amount of time you need.

A task is something you want to accomplish within a specific time. Windows Calendar allows you to create and manage tasks to their completion. You can quickly create a detailed task (New!) using the New Task button on the toolbar. In the Details pane, you can set a Start Date, Due Date (the date by which the task must be completed), and Priority (Low, Medium, or High) for a task. If you need a reminder, you can specify a reminder date and time. To manage the completion of a task, you can select or clear the task check box in the Navigation pane or the Complete check box in the Details pane. If you need to add additional information about a task, you can use the Notes area at the bottom of the pane.

In Windows Calendar, you can create individual calendars for multiple people who use the program and share them with each other (New!). When you have multiple calendars, you can view them individually or all at once, side-by-side, or overlaid to make it easier to compare one calendar with another and check for free time. Appointments for each calendar are displays in a different color to make them easier to tell whose schedule each item belongs to. If you want to add an appointment from another calendar to your calendar, you can drag appointments between the two calendars.

Windows Calendar uses the Internet compatible iCalendar format with the .ics file extension, which allows you to publish and subscribe to calendars over the Internet (New!). After you create a calendar, you can publish it to a Web hosting site where you can share it with others over the Internet. If you want to specify who can access and view a published calendar, you can add password protection. In addition to publishing, you can also subscribe to a published calendar on the Web, so you can stay up-to-date with other people.

Windows Meeting Space (New!) is a program that allows you to set up a meeting with up to ten people and share documents, programs, or your desktop. Before you can hold a meeting, each person attending the meeting needs to be running Windows Vista. To start a new meeting, you give it a name and password for security purposes, and then you invite others to attend. In the meeting, you can share a program or your desktop, and distribute any handout files you want to attendees.

In Windows Meeting Space (New!), you invite participants to a meeting and they can individually join in. To invite a person to join a meeting, you send them an e-mail message or an invitation file with meeting information. Participants can join a meeting at any time during the meeting session. For those within your network, you can change meeting participant settings and sign in options to allow people near you to send you invitations. A meeting continues until all participants have left the meeting. To exit or leave a meeting, you use the Meeting button on the Windows Meeting Space window.

Windows Meeting Space (New!) allows you to share documents, programs, or your desktop with up to ten people running the same version of Windows Vista. When you share documents, programs, or your desktop, participants can view your computer. You can also add handouts to the meeting. Each participant is given a copy of the file and can make changes to the copy one at a time. The changes for each participant are made to all participants’ handouts, except the original handout, which stays the same. During a sharing session, you can temporarily give control to another participant to make a change to a file. Since you are in charge of the meeting, you can take control back at any time.