Daddy Bob

DADDY BOB'S COMPUTER Q & A

 

December 23, 2007

Merry Christmas

Q. Sometimes, when Windows does its automatic updates, it changes my email program default to Outlook. How do I get it back to what I want it to be?

A. I suspect that you have Microsoft Updates activated and that it is updating all of you Microsoft products. This is a good thing, but it sometimes it also includes things like you mention.

Anytime you install Microsoft Outlook, it thinks that you want it to take over all your email related activities and it does this without asking. Sometimes, when Outlook is updated, the same thing can occur. Microsoft Outlook, more than any other program I can think of seems to be worse about this sort of thing. It also insists on creating icons in the system tray every time you open it.  

So, here's how you can get Outlook Express to be returned as your default email handler.

If you are using Windows XP......

1. Open the Control Panel

2. Click Add and Remove programs

3. On the left, click on Set Program Access and Defaults.

     or it may be accessed by clicking Start, then All Programs,
     then Set Program Access and defaults 

4. Click on Custom

5. In the "Choose a default e-mail program" - Click Outlook
    Express. (Yours will probably be set to "current email
    program"

6. Click OK

If you are using Windows Vista

1. Open the Control Panel

2. Click on Default Programs

3. Click Set your default program

4. Highlight Windows Mail (or whatever program you want to
     make your default)

5. Click Set this program as default

6. Click OK.

This will set the default email program to your choice for all email functions. As you can see, you can also use the above procedures to set the defaults for some other programs too.

Click HERE to view or download as a Microsoft Word document

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