Saturday 20 January 2007

Windows Live Mail Desktop

Microsoft have released a beta version of their Windows Live Mail Desktop Client, part of the Windows Live family. It takes a similar style to Outlook Express in how it shows messages, but the interface is new and fresh and is based around MSN Live Messenger. The application looks good and works a treat although the advertising pane on the right does get on your nerves, but that is what is making the application free so it is justified.

You can set it up to provide your emails from any major email service, including GMail, although I would advise moving to one of these mail clients after using web mail can get annoying, I have thousands of messages and they are organised into labels within the GMail web mail however, opening this account in Windows Live Mail listed every email in the Inbox, too much to organise.

You can host multiple accounts from the same window, so you can have two inboxes with all emails accessible at any time through the left hand panel.

There is plenty of integration with MSN services including things like working with MSN messenger and uploading a message to your Spaces account.

I mentioned earlier the looks of the application. It is very attractive and highly customisable; you can change the background colour simply, and with a whole colour panel to choose from you are spoilt for choice. All the main functions like composing, deleting and printing are all on one toolbar above the main area, and as with all of Microsoft’s new applications the idea of a menu is gradually disappearing, you can get this by clicking a button above the advertisement.

My opinions of Windows Live Mail Desktop: It is an attractive application which is a pleasure to use however it is still Outlook Express underneath which is a shame, and I wouldn’t recommend it to people who already have a massive number of emails all organised well in a web mail service. However, if you are a hotmail user or just use your email for friends and family, it is perfect for your needs, obviously businesses probably wouldn’t use a program like this anyway. Overall, a great application and a pleasurable experience.

Simon North, 19th January 2007

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have used WLMD for a long time now and do find it very useful.

I don't have any add banners. And the side search function can be turned off.

Good review.

Thx. Mark.

Smonocco said...

it looks good - better than oe but i cant find a link to download it.

Joey Bowles said...

The latest build from May is nice. The ads are gone. Progress has been very slow. what is the hold up? Are they waiting for Vista SP1?