Collecting mail from different mail accounts can be a tedious process. Fortunately, Outlook Express, which comes bundled with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4, makes it very easy to collect your mail from several POP3 or IMAP accounts. Let’s set up several accounts and see how this is done.

STEP 1: ADDING NEW ACCOUNTS
From the Outlook Express Tools menu, select the Accounts… command. In the Internet Accounts dialog box, click the Add button to display a dropdown list from which you can choose new mail, news, or directory service account. Select Mail… to launch the Internet Connection Wizard, which will walk you through the fields of information required to access your different accounts.

You will need to enter the following things: the type of connection you have, your POP3 or IMAP outgoing and incoming mail server names, your name as you want to see it displayed in your mail viewer and the tag that accompanies your e-mail account password. Repeat these steps for each account you want to set up.

After filling in the necessary details, go back and configure each account with the properties that you desire. For example, you might need to customize an e-mail address that you share with a colleague kor team that requires you to leave mail on the server. Simply highlight the specific account and click the Properties button in the Internet Accounts dialog box. Then, configure information in that account’s Properties dialog box.

STEP 2: SETTING A DEFAULT ACCOUNT
Choosing the right account as your default is very important because this account will send your e-mail. Consequently, if the person receiving your e-mail clicks Reply to Sender, the reply mail will also be routed through this account. This might cause confusion, especially in cases where you are sending replies to personal mail from your company mail account or vice versa. To set yoiur default, highlight the account you want to use and click the Set as Default button in the Internet Accounts dialog box. Now that you’ve set up your various e-mail addresses, click the Send and Receive button in your e-mail viewer and watch Outlook Express collect your mail servers with which you have accounts.

ADD YOUR SIGNATURE

A signature has a dual purpose, that of asserting your individuality and of verifying the authenticity of the e-mail. There was a time when all e-mail was ASCII, and hence all signatures had to be in ASCII as well. Not anymore. Outlook Express 5 offers a variety of options. To build a signature file, follow these steps:

1. Select Tools>Options
2. Click the Signatures tab to bring up the dialog box
3. Press the New button. The temporary name of your new signature is Signature # 1. You should rename it to describe the nature of the signature file.
4. Go ahead and enter the text you want as your signature and click Apply to save your additions.

BACK UP YOUR CONTACTS

Re-creating your personal address book, you would agree, is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks, considering the months it has taken you to list all the important contacts and details.

To avoid losing information in the event of a hard disk crash, back up your personal address book and your mail folders. To do this, copy the files from your hard disk to a backup location, such as a floppy disk or tape drive. The files you would require to copy are the WAB and MBX files. These will be located either in the default location of Windows>Application Data>Microsoft>Address Book, or you can click Start and select Find>Files or Folders to open the Find>All Files dialog box. In the Named text box on the Name & Location tab, type*.web*.mbx.

The WAB file will have the same name as your Outlook Express username. There will also be an MBX file for each mail folder in Outlook Express. Once Find locates all the files, copy them to your backup location. Because your Outlook Express address book and messages can change frequently, you should make copies of these files on a regular basis.

ATTACHING MULTIPLE FILES

You can attach a file to your message through any of these three options-the Paper clip button on the Compose message window; using Windows Explorer and then navigating back to your Compose message window; or by dragging and dropping the file into your message window.

To attach multiple files, first compose your message in the Compose/Reply Message window. Next, open Windows Explorer and highlight all the files you want to attach. Third, drag the files over the top of the New or Reply Message window that is on your toolbar and hold them there long enough for the window to become active. Release your mouse button of the message. There you are-multiple files attached at once.

DELETING ATTACHMENTS

A conventional method to remove an attachment without deleting the mail itself from your mailbox currently does not exist. As a workaround, forward the message to yourself and before sending it, right-click on the attachment and select Remove.

SAVING ATTACHMENT

In either Mail or News, if you take the time to open the message window, rightclick on the attachment and you can either Open, Print, Save or Quick View the attachment. If you would prefer to save the attachment without opening the message window, you have two additional options.

For starters, you can uses File > Save Attachments. Alternatively, if you have enabled Show preview pane Header under View> Layout, click on the paper clip that appears in the upper right corner of the Preview pane, click again and you should get a dialog box asking if you want to open the file or save it to disk. Choosing Save to Disk will call up the Save As dialog box without opening the attachment.

SECURITY ISSUES

When receiving messages with attachments, if you click on the attachments, if you click on the attachment paperclip, you will get the standard ‘Save attachment as’ warning box. However, even though the file type is registered on your system, the ‘Always ask before opening this type of file warning at the bottom of the dialog box is inactive and you cannot turn it off.

Conversely, with files, such as *.txt;.,*doc and *.xlw,the Always ask … warning box is active and you can disable it if you want to (though this is NOT recommended). The behavior is different because Outlook Express and IE 4.0 do not treat all file types the same way. The files that are labeled as ‘dangerous’ include.exe,.com,.bat,.lnk,.reg,.url,.zip and others.

When you attempt to open these files, you always will be prompted to Save it to disk because they can potentially do a lot of damage. File types that are not considered a threat allow you to turn off the warning. OE and IE attempt to make users aware of the truly dangerous download situations.

ADDRESS COMPLETION

OE allows users to auto-type e-mail addresses in the To, CC, or BCC fields. To access this functionality, go to Tools>Options>Send and make sure that you have enabled Automatically complete e-mail addresses when composing.

Note that when you have enabled this feature, the keyboard shortcuts that otherwise allow you to quickly search for an e-mail address, eg,(Ctrl)+(K) or (Alt)+(K), will not work because the address will already be complete.

AUTOMATICALLY EXPAND FOLDERS

OE includes a new feature ‘Automatically display folders with unread messages’ under Tools>Options>General. Enabling this option will automatically open a mail folder that has subfolders in which new messages reside (presumably, by operation of the Inbox Assistant).

This should address user complaints such as not being able to tell when a subfolder has new messages in it.

In addition to the basic functionality added by the ‘Automatically display folders…’, the feature can be further extended with a few modest registry modifications. To toggle on and off other kinds of folders, you first need to find the ‘Expand Unread’ DWORD in your System Registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express.

Once you’ve found Expand Unread DWORD, you can use the numbers below to yield different folder expansion combinations:

1- Mail folders only
3- Mail and IMAP folders
5- News and Mail folders
7- News, Mail and IMAP folders

Those curious about trying even numbers (2,4,6,8 etc), will find that the auto expansion feature automatically gets disabled.

Again, if you enable the auto expand feature through the user interface and click Apply, the Expand Unread DWORD will be reset to a value of 1 (where only Mail folders will automatically expand). So, for maximum control, you’ll need to disable the option under Tools>Options>General.

DISABLE SPLASH SCREEN

Tired of the same old boring Outlook Express splash screen that pops up every time you start your mail? Not many people know that there is a very easy way to get rid of it.

To do that, open Regedit and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\-Outlook Express.

Click on Outlook Express and then right-click on an open space in the right pane and select New>DWORD. Name the DWORD NoSplash.

After naming it, double click on theNoSplash DWORD and change the Value Data from 0 to 1.