Windows Live mail desktop: looking for user feedback

[ejr]

I am one of the few people that loved Outlook Express. On my new PC, Windows Mail is the next generation of OE. But Windows mail is awful. It just doesn't meet my needs at all.

So I switched to Thunderbird. This is a very solid email client. However, even with the quicktext add on, I still am not happy with the way that I must add my html signature to outgoing emails.

So my search for another email client continues. Has anyone used Windows Live Mail Desktop (now just called Windows Live Mail)? If so, how does it or did it work for you?

[farmerlee]

Yeh i use windows live mail. I like it as its easy to use and i can access both my regular email and webmail in the same place. I think windows live mail is the newer version of windows mail that came with vista so it might have improved enough to suit your needs.

[Kerodo]

I used it just recently for a week and it seemed reasonably ok. It appears to be some sort of further evolution in the Outlook Express -> Windows Mail -> Live Mail chain with a facelift. The options menu is basically the same as the OE options menu, with some minor changes.

Overall, it was nice and quick and snappy in it's performance. Quite a bit snappier than Outlook 2007, which I'm using now. I'd recommend it. I did see a few oddities it did on plain text emails, but otherwise it seems fine.

I don't like TBird much, so I only use it in Linux where the choices are limited for email clients. Give me an MS email client and I'm happy.... :)

[farmerlee]

I forgot to mention the only strange issue i have with live mail has to do with defensewall. Sometimes i'll exit live mail but the actual live mail process keeps on running in the background which ends up preventing me from running live mail again. I have to then manually kill the live mail process before i can run it again.

[ejr]

Thank you. One additional question for you both.

Windows Mail had an annoying delay. For 100 contacts in your contact folder, there is a .025 second delay in opening the email window. With 1500 contacts, this would creat a 35-40 second delay before sending every email. This was unnaceeptble.

For the Thunderbird User...Can Windows Live import emails and T-Bird address Book?

[Kerodo]

I don't know bout the delay, but I seriously doubt MS would bother to provide a means to import mail or contacts from anything but another MS email client...

[ejr]

I just installed Windows Live Mail today. It is a HUGE upgrade from Windows Mail that comes with Vista. Believe it or not, MS must have actually listened to their customers for a change.

[Kerodo]

-{ Quote: "I just installed Windows Live Mail today. It is a HUGE upgrade from Windows Mail that comes with Vista. Believe it or not, MS must have actually listened to their customers for a change." }-
Yeah, it's not bad at all. I liked it. And it was most certainly much faster and more responsive than Outlook 2007....

Free is good too... :)