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DADDY BOB'S COMPUTER Q & A
May 13,
2007
Q.
Is the change from XP's Outlook Express to
Vista's Windows Mail really anything more
than a name change?
A.
In a word yes. For those not familiar,
Microsoft has replaced Outlook Express with
Windows Mail in Vista. Windows Mail has the
same general look and feel as Outlook
Express, so the move from one to the other
should be painless. Windows Mail (WM) is a
lot closer to Outlook in many respects, yet
is free with Vista. Unfortunately, it only
works with Vista.
WM
has a very good spam/junk mail filter
that is updated automatically with the
rest of Microsoft updates similar to the
way that Outlook is automatically
updated. The filter has four setting
level, "No Automatic Filtering", "Low",
"High" and "Safe List Only.". Here is
what the dialog looks like. (Notice the
Vista Aero transparency effect in the
header)
-
No Automatic Filtering.
Click this option if you
want to stop blocking junk
e‑mail messages altogether.
However,
Windows Mail will
continue to block messages
from domain names and e‑mail
addresses on your Blocked
Senders list.
-
Low. Click this
option if you don't receive
many junk e‑mail messages
and want to block only the
most obvious junk e‑mail
messages.
-
High. Click this
option if you receive a
large volume of junk e‑mail
messages and want to block
as many as possible.
However, you should
periodically review the
messages in your Junk e‑mail
folder to ensure that there
are not any legitimate
e‑mail messages that might
have been moved there as
well.
-
Safe List Only.
Click this option if you
only want to receive
messages from people or
domain names on your Safe
Senders list. E‑mail
messages from people or
domain names not on your
Safe Senders list will be
treated as junk e‑mail
messages, so you should only
choose this option if you
are certain that every
person or domain name you
want to receive messages
from is on your Safe Senders
list.
In
the International setting tab, you can
block all email written in a foreign
language and from many top domains. You
can also choose to block mail in
languages that use special encoding and
character sets.
Windows Mail also contains a phishing
filter that red or yellow flags messages
that may contain links that redirect to
a site other than the one indicated.
These messages can be prevented from
being downloaded, or they can just be
automatically moved to your Junk Mail
folder.
The
final setting is to automatically delete
all email designated as Junk instead of
moving it to the Junk Mail folder. There
is one idiosyncrasy that I have
experienced with this setting. Although
the junk mail is automatically deleted,
the "New Mail" tone alert if active is
still sounded as if the mail was
actually received.
After
much experimenting, I recommend this
course of action with respect to the
junk mail filter setting. Unless you
want to receive email from your Safe
List Only, start out with the High
setting, and observe all the email that
is being flagged as junk. If there are
any from sources that are not junk,
simply add them to your Safe Senders
list. When the junk mail filter then
becomes near 100% effective, choose to
automatically delete all junk mail, and
then spam and other junk mail will no
longer be a problem.
One
other addition to Windows Mail that was
sorely missing from Outlook Express is a
full featured, fully integrated
calendar. In addition to being your used
as your personal calendar, it can be
used to subscribe to web calendars from
participating organizations and to share
your schedule with others. It is easily
published.
Although not everything in Vista will be
considered by many to be an improvement
over XP, Microsoft did get the new email
program right. All in all, Windows
Mail is a major improvement over Outlook
Express while maintaining its feel and
ease of use of use.
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