Living the Vista life without Outlook
Vista is an amazing operating system, from its vastly improved interface to the amount of things you can get done just from the base install. Without installing any third party applications it is possible to edit photos, create and edit movies and organize your entire music collection. It even includes an email client.
In addition to the email client you also get both a contact manager and calendar. Windows Mail is the default email client within Vista, if you like Windows Mail (and why wouldn’t you, okay, there is a reason but that’s for later) you wouldn’t even need to install Outlook.
Windows Mail is far superior to Outlook Express and the only way to get Windows Mail is to (purchase and) install Vista. Windows Mail has the same basic features as Outlook Express but piles on a faster interface and tons of upgrades. It’s anti-spam features actually work, has message flagging, performs spell check without having Office installed, protects you from phising attacks and much much more that I have not mentioned here.
Now that problem I mentioned earlier. Windows Mail does not like Gmail accounts, perhaps it is a problem with Windows Mail, perhaps it is a problem with or the way Gmail is set up but it simply will not work with 100% functionality. If your primary email account(s) are with Gmail then I suggest other alternatives like Thunderbird, Outlook or Outlook Express.
I’m not patient enough to get Windows Mail working with my Gmail accounts as Thunderbird “just worked†but apparently if you sit around and wait anywhere between 15 minutes and an hour it will start working where you will be able to send but not receive emails. Isn’t that wonderful? I’m not fully blaming Windows Mail for this problem but come on guys, do ONE thing, just ONE thing perfectly or is that not possible?
I guess that’s enough about Windows Mail, let’s move on to Windows Calendar. It’s a calendar and a powerful one at that. It allows you to view your schedule by day, week or month, there is a small event viewer which lists your tasks for that time frame and the GUI is completely customizable. The most amazing, or more interesting feature is that you can publish your calendar to a network or website so others can view your schedule and you can subscribe to other people’s calendars. I’ll let you decide if that is a good thing, publishing your business schedule, yes, personal schedule, probably not a good idea.
The last one is Windows Contacts which is not really an address book at all, a complete departure from the norm. Windows Contacts is a specialized folder that will store all your contacts as their own individual file. You can even treat them as any old regular file and set properties accordingly, such as “read onlyâ€. There might be one problem in that these files can only be read by Vista, XP or any earlier version of Windows will not be able to see them. The good news is, all Vista operating systems can read them.
There you have it, tear yourself away from Outlook in Vista and live the good life. Well, maybe not so good seeing as how Windows Mail doesn’t particularly care for Gmail (but you can get Thunderbird), Windows Contacts apparently can’t save files in any other format and what it uses can only be read by other Vista PCs and Windows Calendar is probably the most amazing little application Vista has to offer (next to Movie Maker and Photo Viewer, more on those another day).
Besides those complaints there is only one other thing I would suggest to Microsoft, give the applications cute names, you know, like Apple did with iTunes, iCal and so on, they need cute names. Let’s see, vMail, vCal and vNames, what do you think?
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March 24th, 2007
[...] Just as we almost recommended using Windows Mail instead of Outlook or Outlook Express a new exploit has come about to negate that recommendation. Microsoft has acknowledged the existence of a possible exploit and is currently researching its validity. [...]
March 25th, 2007
[...] Dangerous exploit looms in Windows Vista Mail Just as we almost recommended using Windows Mail instead of Outlook or Outlook Express a new exploit has come about to negate that recommendation. Microsoft has acknowledged the existence of a possible exploit and is currently researching its validity. [...]
March 25th, 2007
[...] Dangerous exploit looms in Windows Vista Mail Just as we almost recommended using Windows Mail instead of Outlook or Outlook Express a new exploit has come about to negate that recommendation. Microsoft has acknowledged the existence of a possible exploit and is currently researching its validity. Symantec has issued a warning regarding the vulnerability giving it a threat rating of 7.5 after it was discovered the bug could be remotely executed. The exploit works by first sending an email message to the inbox with a link that is attached to a malicious file. Using this, the suspect PC could be infected with a trojan or identity theft software. Some of these exploits only require the user to click the link in the email. In this case, the link is to a local executable file such as winrm.cmd, the remote management command line utility. That would give the attacker completely control of the PC. It should be noted that if the link points to a file that is not local it may be easier to spot it as being a scam, especially if it needs to download its support files from somewhere which must then be given permission to execute. If you aren’t sure of what program launched the request or is asking for permission, don’t allow it. Please, don’t get in the habit of just clicking “Allow”, “Yes” or “Okay” when these things pop up, actually read the notification first. Microsoft doesn’t seem to think this is as serious as Symantec or other security firms think it is. A spokeswomen from Microsoft’s Security Response Center said “Microsoft is not aware of any attacks attempting to use the reported vulnerability or of customer impact at this time” but at the same time, they are still looking into the matter. It is possible that Microsoft will eventually acknowledge this as a real flaw instead of beating around the bush about it. If they do, the next update cycle for Windows products is on April 10th and that includes Vista. We would also like to remind users that if you are unsure of who sent the message to you NOT to click any of the links in it or download any attached files present in the email. That goes for all emails, on all accounts, regardless of which email client you are using. In order to prevent this very thing from happening, it is important to follow our recommended precautions and have up to date security software. See our post Free Security Software for Vista. I also recommend McAfee – Antivirus Software and Intrusion Prevention Solutions or Norton 360 (no other version) for use on Vista. Source:VISTA.BLORGE.com » Blog Archive » Dangerous exploit looms in Windows Vista Mail [...]
March 25th, 2007
[...] Just as we almost recommended using Windows Mail instead of Outlook or Outlook Express a new exploit has come about to negate that recommendation. Microsoft has acknowledged the existence of a possible exploit and is currently researching its validity.Symantec has issued a warning regarding the vulnerability giving it a threat rating of 7.5 after it was discovered the bug could be remotely executed. The exploit works by first sending an email message to the inbox with a link that is attached to a malicious file. Using this, the suspect PC could be infected with a trojan or identity theft software. [...]
March 26th, 2007
Are you saying that Outlook 2002 will not run on Vista at all? I have been trying to load Office 2002 and everything works but Outlook. It keeps giving me ‘Outllook is not running correctly, shutting down’. Do I have to buy Outlook 2007? We need to sync with handhelds.
March 26th, 2007
That is a failing of Windows Mail I failed to mention, it doesn’t sync with PDAs. For those who are interested everything from Office XP to Office 2007 should run on Vista. I cannot confirm the functionality of Office XP on Vista but I assure you that Office 2003 and Office 2007 just love Vista. I do not see any reason why Office XP (aka 2002) would not run under Vista.
Having said that, I’m not surprised it isn’t working correctly. But there is something you can try, right click the Outlook shortcut go to the compatibility tab and from the drop down list select Windows XP SP2. I can’t promise that will work but that is something you can try assuming you are running Vista. If that doesn’t work you have one of two options. One of them is to buy Outlook 2003 (or a version of Office 2003 that includes Outlook) or buy Outlook 2007 (or a version of Office 2007). The other is to try reinstalling it (no promises there either).
If you are a government employee you are eligible to purchase Office 2007 Enterprise for $20 (single license). There are also student, teacher and other educational, business and government discounts based on where and who you work for.
May 21st, 2007
I am not at all impressed with either IE7 nor Windows mail.
Can I get Outlook Express back?
Both are far less user friendly.
thank you
August 13th, 2007
I’m a computer professional, and I installed Windows Vista as an upgrade to XP Pro. There were a few things that I liked about the new OS, but I uninstalled it a week later.
The number of computations per second that my primary computer was capable of was lower on Vista than it was on XP Pro, and too many of my older programs (such as Adobe Acrobat Professional) were incompatable with Vista.
Sure, there are some nice things, but I fail to see the benefit of updating to the latest OS when that means I would need to update several programs that still work perfectly fine on XP Pro. For some people, the improvements may outweigh the drawbacks, but I found that the drawbacks currently outweigh the benefits.
October 14th, 2007
Free Software Downloads
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting
March 12th, 2008
Almost a year later and people would think that the author was on drugs when the first line said “Vista is an amazing operating system”.
BTW, you can get Windows Mail as part of the Windows Live group.
April 11th, 2008
Vista is like XP with a film of annoyance, covering everything inside. If there were software for the conversion of Vista back to XP, I’d use it.I would trade the disk for Media Center anytime.
I think they condone drug use at the compound where these operating systems are made.
April 30th, 2008
[...] prevention Solutions or norton 360 no other version for use on Vista. Source:VISTA.BLORGE.com …http://vista.blorge.com/2007/03/24/living-the-vista-life-without-outlook/trackback/Symantec Calls Out Microsoft Over Vista Security – Microsoft …Sep 25, 2006 … That&39s what they [...]
June 19th, 2008
I have not been able to figure out how to sync my PDA contacts with windows contacts feature. I should mention I have no contacts on my vista machine. I’m looking for a way to bakup my PDA contacts on my PC Laptop.
June 24th, 2008
[...] our support team at: toptips@techforyou.com Sites you may be interested in Living the Vista life without Outlook – VISTA.BLORGE.com Tags outlook calendar outlook ms outlook tips This product is also listed in Computing & [...]
July 21st, 2008
[...] as we almost recommended using Windows Mail instead of Outlook or Outlook Express a new exploit has come about to negate that recommendation. [...]