This category will teach you how to use E-Mail with the Windows Live Mail program (also known as an E-Mail Client). Windows Live Mail comes pre-installed with Windows Vista, but needs downloading if you are using Windows 7. So in this section I will show you how to download and install Windows Live Mail.
Windows Live Mail has the job of sending and receiving your e-mail by communicating with the mail servers (e-mail computers) belonging to your broadband company. When you sign up for broadband internet services for example that company (i.e. TalkTalk), also known as an ISP (Internet Service Provider), has computers (servers/master computers) that are responsable for your e-mail. One computer (the Incoming/Receiving Mail Server) is responsible for receiving your e-mail and storing it, until it is requested by Windows Live Mail or by a web browser such as Internet Explorer (via WebMail - online e-mail). And the other computer (the Outgoing/Sending Mail Server) is responsible for any e-mail you send, using Windows Live Mail or a web browser such as Internet Explorer for example.
The above diagram (top-left) shows that you should start Windows Live Mail, Write (compose) an e-mail and then instruct windows live mail to SEND that
e-mail to your ISP's computer. Windows Live Mail communicates with your ISP's computer and gives it your e-mail account details along with the e-mail
itself. Your ISP's computer, which monitors all extended internet connections coming from Internet Explorer as well as from Windows Live Mail and so on,
then has to verify/authorize the received e-mail account's username & password and check the email for malware (viruses and so on) before it can then
forward your email to the recipients ISP's computer. An example of setting up an e-mail account is given in the next section.
Assuming the verification/authorization all went well, when the recipient's ISP computer receives the email it goes through a similar verification/authorization
process before putting the e-mail into the recipient's INBOX. So at this point, assuming all went well, your e-mail is now on your recipient's ISP computer
waiting to be downloaded (received) by them. When your recipient wants to receive their e-mail they have to launch Windows Live Mail first, on their
computer (shown above in blue, Recipient Starts Their Windows Live Mail), and then tell windows live mail to RECEIVE ALL e-mail. What happens next is that
their ISP's computer receives the RECEIVE ALL E-MAIL request from windows live mail, verifies/authorizes the request (by checking their e-mail account
details) and then sends (downloads) them their e-mails if all went well with the verification/authorization process. When they have received all of their
e-mails they should have the e-mail you sent amongst them.
| DOWNLOAD WINDOWS LIVE MAIL |
To download Windows Live Mail you first need to open your web browser (i.e. Internet Explorer or Firefox), type http://download.live.com/wlmail into its Address Bar edit box and then either click on the GO (blue arrow) button or press the ENTER keyboard key. Either way, you will end up on the Windows Live Mail DOWNLOAD web page.
When the download web page appears simply click on its DOWNLOAD button to continue. Doing so will bring up the following File Download message requester
whereby you can either SAVE the 134MB file as an .exe (executable) file (for later installation) or RUN it. If you click on the SAVE button you will be
asked where (which folder) you want to save the .exe file in to. Once the .exe file has been downloaded (saved), into your chosen folder, it is then up
to you to double click on it in order to launch/execute the installation wizard within the .exe file. To keep this example simple just click on the RUN
button instead. The .exe file will then be downloaded into a temporary system folder and the installation wizard within it will be launched/executed
(run) automatically.
The .exe file contains the Windows Live software and an installation wizard. It is the job of the installation wizard to guide you through the
installation process of the software you want installing, and also to communicate with Windows 7 with regards to registering the software with the
Programs And Features control panel for example. Anyway. For now, just click on the RUN button to continue.
When the Windows Live software has finished downloading, from this point onwards, you might see a UAC (User Account Control) security requester appear (depending on your security settings and so on). If this is the case for you simply click on its CONTINUE/YES button to continue.
User Account Control (UAC) is a feature of Windows 7 that helps to prevent unauthorized changes to the computer, such as deleting a system file or installing some software. When attempting to install some software the UAC security requester will automatically block you off, because it wants to know if you are the one attempting to install that software and not a piece of malicious software for example. So if a UAC Security Requester does appear simply click on its CONTINUE/YES button to continue.
Regardless if any UAC security requester appears or not, either way the next window you will see is the License Agreement window whereby you must agree to the Terms & Conditions on it before continuing.
Read the License Agreement carefully. Although these tend to contain useless information, they usually explain Copyright issues or Usage issues that
clarify who can use the software and who cannot. So if, for example, you are told that a certain piece of software is Free and/or Free To Use you may
want to clarify this by reading the agreement. Some installation wizards do not allow you to continue, by fading out the CONTINUE/I ACCEPT button, until
you have read (scrolled down) the license agreement. When you are ready and if you agree, click on the I ACCEPT button to continue.
The next window that appears (below) asks you which components of the Windows Live software you want to install.
The 134MB download (above) is so big because it also contains the Windows Live Toolbar, A Photo Gallery, Microsoft Office Add-Ons and so on as well as
Windows Live Mail. However. In this example, because you are only wanting to install Windows Live Mail, you can switch off (untick) all the other software
options that are available and then click on the INSTALL button to continue. As you install the different softwares they get faded out next time around
simply because you have installed them of course.
Clicking on the INSTALL button then makes the installation perform certain software update checks and so on (below), but before these checks can be
carried out you need to close all web browsers and any other programs/services that may interfere with this checking process. But how would you know
which programs/services to close? Well that's the beauty of a good installation wizard. It closes the necessary programs and services for you. So make
sure the CLOSE THESE PROGRAMS FOR ME option is selected before clicking on the CONTINUE button.
At this point the installation process is almost complete, but before you are completely finished you must decide whether or not you want to have Bing as your default search engine (as opposed to Google for example) within SEARCH edit boxes, MSN as your web browser's (i.e. Internet Explorer's) default Homepage (start up web page) and whether or not to allow Microsoft to collect/use information about your Windows Live software usage. If you do not want any of these things to happen untick all these options, otherwise tick the options you do want. In this example I am not to worried about these matters/options (I trust Microsoft and don't mind having their software options as defaults).
That's it! Windows Live Mail has been successfully installed......but you will still need to set up an e-mail account within Windows Live Mail in order to use it. This is explained in the next section.
Microsoft product screen shot(s) reprinted with permission from Microsoft Corporation. As stated here by the Microsoft Corporation.
