Fig 1.0 Two unopened e-mails, one with attachment(s) and one without attachment(s).
| OPEN AN E-MAIL |
Continuing from the previous, Receive An E-Mail, section. When your e-mail has been downloaded (received) it is listed in the Viewing window pane (Fig 1.0 below). In this example there are two e-mails from my friend Denise Oakdale. The first one does not have an attachment (RE: E-Mail Test Only) but the second one does (Two Files Attached). You know when an e-mail has an attachment because it has a Paper Clip symbol to the left of it.
Over time, when your INBOX gets fuller, you may find it hard to distinguish between new e-mail and old e-mail. So to help out windows live mail gives you a few pointers. For example. The heading of an unread e-mail will be in bold text and its envelope icon will be of a Closed Envelope, whereas the heading of a read e-mail will be in plain (not bold) text and its envelope icon will be of an Opened Envelope. Also. The status bar states the number of e-mails that have been read as well as the number of e-mails that remain unread. Unfortunately there is nothing to tell you how many attached files (attachments) an e-mail contains. You will only know this when you open the e-mail.
To open an e-mail simply double click on its envelope icon or on its name. As you do this the first click highlights the e-mail (Fig 1.1) and the second click opens the e-mail (Fig 1.2). You probably will not notice the highlighting of the e-mail due to the e-mail's message window appearing in front of the viewing window pane straight away.
The above e-mail (Fig 1.1) consists of an Header (the FROM, SUBJECT and DATE information) and a Body (the E-Mail Message itself). The header tells you
who the e-mail came FROM (who the Sender is), what the SUBJECT is about and the DATE (and TIME) the e-mail was sent. You know who it is addressed TO
because it has been received by a particular e-mail account (i.e. the Yoingco (John) e-mail account in this case). The body contains the sender's
message and any previous messages sent between you and the sender. Any previous messages will have a line above them and underneath that line is the
header and body, as in the above example (Fig 1.2).
FROM means who the e-mail came from. In this case, from Denise Oakdale.
The reason FROM shows Denise Oakdale is because this is the Display Name (First and Last name) denise chose for herself when she set up her Yahoo e-mail
account. She could of put a nickname but she chose to put her real name instead. If you want to change the sender's display name yourself you can do.
Right click on one of their received e-mails, to bring up the Options menu, and then select the ADD SENDER TO CONTACTS menu-item. This will bring up the
Add A Contact window which will allow you to change their display name as well as other details.
SUBJECT is just the Title of the e-mail.
Always be wary of an e-mail's title. For example. Bad people normally use it to fool you. They might title a bad e-mail "Hello John", hoping your name
is John and hoping you will open the bad e-mail. And if your name is not John they hope you might think "What is this? My name is not John?" and then
become curious enough to open the bad e-mail.
DATE is the date, and time, when the e-mail was sent by the sender and not when you received it.
The DATE heading in the windows live mail Viewing window is meant as a sorting method. For example. When you have received many e-mails, perhaps over a
9 day period, they will at some point need sorting into order. And one way you can do this is by the date and time an e-mail was received. See the
Sorting E-Mails section for more information.
MESSAGE contains the actual e-mail message and any previous e-mail messages.
When you open an e-mail its message is always displayed inside a read (view) only edit box, so it can be viewed but not edited. To edit it you need to
click on the REPLY button for example (explained in the next section). The message itself normally only contains the sender's message. However. These
days, by default, any previous e-mail messages between you and the sender are also shown. Those previous e-mail messages are marked with a line
(Fig 1.2 above).
Also these days anti-virus software tends to add its own message to the bottom of an e-mail message to let you know that e-mail is free of viruses
(clean) - This does not mean the attachment, if any, is virus free though. It could have been blocked, if it was considered dangerous or virused. Another
thing you might see in an e-mail message is advertising, usually included by the sender's e-mail server (i.e. Yahoo), which is quite normal these days.
When you have finished reading an e-mail and want to close it either click on the eXit (Close) button in the top-right corner of the message window or
use the File menu, CLOSE menu-item. Both methods will take you back to the windows live mail (INBOX) window.
When you arrive back at the windows live mail window look at the INBOX and Status Bar. You will notice that these have changed. The INBOX has decreased
by one, to let you know you have now read (opened) one of the two e-mails. And the status bar (bottom-left corner) reflects this by
stating: 2 message(s), 1 unread. The bottom-right corner of the status bar might remain as: 2 new message(s) for a short time only but then states
Working Online only. Another thing to take note of is the Envelope Icon next to each e-mail. When you open an e-mail for the first time its envelope
icon will change, from a Closed Envelope, to an Opened Envelope (Fig 1.5 above).
I will now open the second e-mail.
The only difference between the above two e-mails is that the e-mail above has attachments, one of which is displayed under the message. Attachments are
explained in more detail below (The Attach Box).
When you have finished reading an e-mail and want to close it either click on the eXit (CLOSE) button in the top-right corner of the message window or
use the File menu, CLOSE menu-item. Both methods will take you back to the windows mail (INBOX) window.
When you arrive back at the windows live mail window look at the INBOX and Status Bar. You will notice that these have changed again. The INBOX now has no number next to it. This is because it decreased by one and reached zero, but instead of stating INBOX (0) it just states INBOX to let you know you have now read (opened) every e-mail in that e-mail account. The status bar (bottom-left corner) reflects this by stating: 2 message(s), 0 unread. Another thing to take note of is that the envelope icons next to both e-mails now have an Opened Envelope next to them instead of a Closed Envelope.
| THE ATTACH BOX |
The attach box, which was explained in the Attach A File section, lists all the (safe/clean) files that are attached to an e-mail. They are listed by file
name, file size and associated program icon (if they have one). In the above example the attached file called ExampleVideo.flv is a Flash Video file,
which currently has no associated program icon representing it. The attached file called john.jpg on the other hand is a photograph file that has a
default (standard) picture icon representing it because its associated program is the default photograph viewer called Windows Photo Viewer.
With regards to file size it is a good idea to ask your friends, and so on, not to send you large photograph files for example. Many people just attach
a file, unaware of file size and your e-mail account's INBOX storage capacity. This can lead to them getting errors: "Could not send e-mail",
"Recipient's account is too small or full" or words to that effect. This is especially true when people forward you an e-mail whereby they want you to
see the e-mail message but forget the e-mail has a large file attached to it. Or they know but do not consider your e-mail account's storage capacity.
To open an attached file you simply double on it.
After double clicking on the attached file Windows 7 then examines the file's extension to determine which program to open the file with, which is
normally the program that made it. So if you have a file with the extension .xlsx Windows 7 will normally open that file with Microsoft Excel 2007.
However. If you do not have Microsoft Excel 2007 installed on your computer Windows 7 will try and use another program to open the file. This is known
as file association. What this means is a Microsoft Excel 2007 (.xlsx) file will be associated with and opened with an alternative program, if that
alternative program is installed and set up to read Microsoft Excel 2007 files.
If you do not have Microsoft Excel 2007 installed and no alternative program installed either, to open a excel (.xlsx) file for example, you will get the
following scenario - The following scenario relates to the ExampleVideo.flv file but applies equally to any file with file association problems.
Fig 2.1 above shows that Windows 7 has determined that there is no program installed that associates itself directly with a Flash Video (.flv) file.
Even though I have a compatible program installed which can open the .flv file. This is not a mistake by Windows 7. It just means my compatible program
has not been associated (set up) with the .flv file type. For example. Indirectly my compatible program can open a Flash Video (.flv) file, if you
launch it and then open a .flv file with it, but not directly.
Fig 2.2 confirms what I have just said - that there is no program associated with the file extension .flv simply because the file extension has never been
associated with a program before. Hence why the OPEN WITH file requester is suggesting I try Windows Live Movie Maker and OTHER PROGRAMS. You can also
use the Default Programs (Set Associations) Control Panel to set up file/program association, but it is not meant for the beginner. Therefore I suggest
that if you come across the above scenario, for any unknown file type (file name extension), you do one of the following. Either save your attached file
into the Documents folder for example and then open it indirectly with an appropriate program. Or ask the sender what software they used to make the file,
so you then know which software to buy or download.
As long as your computer is up-to-date with the latest, common, software you should find that most people will send you attachments whereby you already
have the common software installed to open most, if not all, of the attached files. Figure 2.0 above explains how double clicking on an attachment with
a known file type, such as the .jpg file type, makes its associated program (i.e. Windows Photo Viewer) display that file (i.e. the IMG_0157.jpg). This
is possible because the necessary software is installed which can associate itself with displaying a .jpg file. If the .jpg file name extension had no
program associated with it the photograph would not of been displayed.
You can tell if a file type (file name extension) has an associated program by looking at the file's icon. Figure 2.0 shows IMG_0157.jpg with a Photograph
icon because it is associated with Windows Photo Viewer whereas Figure 2.0 also shows ExampleVideo.flv with a blank (psuedo) icon because it has no
program associated with it.
To save an attached file simply right click on it, to bring up its Options menu, and then left click on the SAVE AS menu-item. The SAVE ATTACHMENT AS
file requester will then appear (Fig 2.4).
Despite its name the SAVE ATTACHMENT AS file requester is a normal file requester that saves an attached file as a normal file. For example. An attached
.xlsx file would be saved as a Microsoft Excel 2007 file, even though Microsoft Excel 2007 might not be installed on the computer. Why? Because Windows 7
knows you might want to send that .xlsx file, as an attachment, to someone who does have Microsoft Excel 2007 installed on their computer. Or that you
might install Microsoft Excel 2007 at a later date on your computer.
I would ignore the PRINT menu-item if I were you. It is supposed to print an attached file, with the file's associated program. For example. If the
attached file was CV.docx Microsoft Word 2007, or whatever program is associated with the .docx file extension, should either open the file and then
print it or just print it without opening its program window. Unfortunately. Due to windows live mail and/or Windows 7 security/normal settings sometimes
an attached file cannot be printed.
This could be because windows live mail and/or Windows 7 is blocking an attached file it thinks could be harmful or
because no direct-printing program is associated with the file's extension. And even if an attached file has a program associated with it, so it can be
viewed, that program might not be able to directly print the file. For example. A photograph file normally gets passed onto the Windows Photo Viewer
program which displays the photograph only - you then have to print the photograph manually.
The above error message is due to me trying to print the attached photograph file IMG_0157.jpg, by right clicking on it and selecting PRINT, which could not be printed because no program is associated with printing it directly. After saving the photograph file into the PICTURES folder I then right clicked on the photograph file and chose its PRINT menu-item. The Printing Wizard then appeared, which enabled me to print the file.
Another reason why a file might not be able to be printed, or opened, is because another program is using its association. For example. When you install
some media software it might ask you if you want all media files to be associated with its media playing program. Clicking on its YES button can be a
mistake as it might not have the same playing power as your previous (default) media player. In some cases they do not have a certain CODEC (decoder)
installed which means the player cannot play a certain type of media file.
This attach box section has hopefully given you some insight into what you should be aware of with regards to Attachments in general. Remember. If you
keep your software up-to-date and give a little thought for your recipient's software and e-mail account storage capacity you should not come across too
many problems. Basically. The chances of you coming across someone who has exactly the same software as you, the same storage capacity as you, the same
computer settings as you and the same nature/personality/thoughtfulness as you are slim. So expect the odd attachment to be too large, the odd file not
to open and so on.
Microsoft product screen shot(s) reprinted with permission from Microsoft Corporation. As stated here by the Microsoft Corporation.
