This category will teach you how to use E-Mail with Windows Mail. An e-mail is a data file that must contain at least one
E-Mail Address (i.e contactjohn@yoingco.com), a Subject (i.e Photos Attached) and a Message (in the form of a small note or
a letter). An e-mail can also contain one or more Files (i.e Photographs and Documents) which are known as Attachments, but
do not worry too much about this as e-mail Attachments, Sending, Receiving, Forwarding and so on will be explained in later
sections. If you are not keen on learning about the technicals of E-Mail Servers I would suggest you read the next paragraph
only before skipping to Getting Started below.
Windows Mail is the E-Mail Client that comes with Windows Vista. It has two main jobs to do - Send e-mail to your E-Mail Server
and retrieve e-mail from your E-Mail Server. An e-mail server is like any other server. It is a master computer (normally your
ISP's computer) that serves your e-mail needs. Basically. Windows Mail is the
client (customer) server (program) that communicates with your e-mail (host's/ISP's) server. Together they relay your
incoming and outgoing e-mail between computers (servers). Below is a diagram that shows how Windows Mail is used with an
e-mail (ISP's) server.
The above diagram (top-left) shows that you should start Windows Mail, Write (compose) an e-mail and then instruct windows
mail to SEND that e-mail to your ISP's computer. Windows 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 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 below.
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 recieve their e-mail they have to launch Windows Mail first, on their computer (shown above in blue, Recipient Starts Their Windows Mail),
and then tell windows mail to RECEIVE ALL e-mail. What happens next is that their ISP's computer recieves the RECEIVE ALL E-MAIL
request from windows 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.
| GETTING STARTED |
Before launching windows mail make sure you have the Main Internet Connection, as described in The Internet
section, open. Windows mail expects the main internet connection to be open so that it can use an Extended Internet Connection
(also explained in The Internet section) to communicate directly with your ISP's computer. Therefore, there is no need to
have Internet Explorer open - Internet Explorer, which uses its own extended internet connection to download/upload files
and webpages, has nothing to do with windows mail whatsoever. Failing to have the main internet connection open before
launching windows mail might result in errors and/or the Dial-Up requester appearing.
To launch windows mail either click on its Quick Launch icon (Fig 1.0) or double click on its Desktop icon (Fig 1.1). If
there are no windows mail icons in these places launch windows mail from the START menu - Click on the START button, then
on ALL PROGRAMS and then on Windows Mail (Fig 1.2).
As soon as you launch windows mail the first window you will see is its copyright message window (Fig 1.3). A few seconds later the main window will appear (Fig 1.4).
If you have more than one e-mail client installed on your computer, such as Windows Mail and Microsoft Outlook, and windows mail is not the default (normal) e-mail client to use the following message requester will appear when you start windows mail. To make windows mail the default e-mail client, and to stop the message requester from appearing again, click on the YES button. Clicking on the NO button will allow you to use windows mail but next time around the message requester will appear again.
| SET UP AN E-MAIL ACCOUNT |
Before you can send and/or receive e-mail you must first have an E-Mail Address & Password. You normally get an e-mail
address & password when you sign up with your ISP (Internet Service Provider). For example. When I signed up with BT
OpenWorld they gave me one e-mail address - yoingco@btinternet.com - and asked me to provide a password for it. I also have
the e-mail address contactjohn@yoingco.com, with a password, from when I signed up for this website. I could also get a free
e-mail address & password from the Internet, from Hotmail or Yahoo for example. However. Companies that give a free e-mail
address & password, such as Hotmail and Yahoo, normally want you to manage your e-mail using their website only. To manage
your e-mail using windows mail normally means you have to have a paid-for e-mail address & password, such as an ISP's e-mail
address & password or a website owner's e-mail address & password.
At this stage you might be wondering "Why use Windows Mail? If I have an e-mail address & password I can check my e-mail from
my ISP's website". And this is true, but the whole point of windows mail is that it does not rely on internet explorer and
so does not inherit internet explorer's problems (slow speed, pictures not showing correctly and so on). Windows Mail for
example is faster at sending/receiving e-mail, it allows you to manage more than one e-mail address & password, it is not
bound to 250Mb of storage space (because it uses your hard drive space instead), it allows you to import/export e-mails and
e-mail addresses and is generally better (feature-wise) than an ISP's website based e-mail client.
In order to use windows mail you must first set up an E-Mail Account for each e-mail address & password you want managing.
So assuming you have an e-mail address & password already click on the TOOLS menu of windows mail, so that its menu-items
appear, and then select the ACCOUNTS menu-item (Fig 2.0). The Internet Accounts window will then appear (Fig 2.1).
When the Internet Accounts window is opened for the very first time it will be displaying one News (Newsgroup) Account and
have two Directory Services hidden, all of which you can ignore. What is important here is that there are no E-Mail Accounts
available, simply because none have been created yet. Therefore I will now show you how to create an E-Mail Account.
Begin by clicking on the ADD button (Fig 2.1 above) to open the Account Wizard. The first window of the Account Wizard
(Fig 2.2 below) asks you to choose an Account Type to create - E-Mail Account, Newsgroup Account or Directory Service. The
last two have nothing to do with setting up an E-Mail Account, therefore leave E-MAIL ACCOUNT selected and just click on
NEXT to continue.
After clicking on the NEXT button, above, the account wizard then asks you to type a Display Name into the DISPLAY NAME Edit Box (Fig 2.3 below). This is the name that people will see when you send them an e-mail. Simply enter your display name into the edit box and then click on the NEXT button to continue.
The next thing the account wizard asks you for is your E-Mail Address, which needs to be typed into the EMAIL ADDRESS Edit Box (Fig 2.4 below). As said above, this is normally the e-mail address given to you by your ISP or a website owner e-mail address. So if you are with BT your e-mail address might be john.smith@btinternet.com. In which case that is what you would type into the edit box. In this example though I am not using my ISP e-mail address, I am using my Domain Name (website owner) e-mail address instead: contactjohn@yoingco.com. When you have typed your e-mail address into the edit box click on NEXT to continue.
The next set of information you are asked for is your ISP's Server (computer) information. More specifically its POP3
(Incoming/Receiving) and SMTP (Outgoing/Sending) Server details. These details can either be found on the Internet (i.e On
your ISP's website) or by Telephoning your ISP directly. This is because this information can vary from one ISP to another.
For example. One ISP might use mail (i.e mail.btinternet.com) for both their POP3 and SMTP servers, whereas another ISP might
use pop3.ispname.co.uk and smtp.ispname.co.uk. In this example I have used this website's server details of mail.yoingco.com.
So telephone your ISP and ask them "What are the POP3 and SMTP server details I have to enter into Windows Mail when setting
up my E-Mail Account?". Once you have these details type them into their respective edit boxes, below, and then click on the
NEXT button to continue.
POP3 is the server (ISP computer) used to receive your e-mail and SMTP is the server (ISP computer) used to send your e-mail.
Normally you use the same server to send and receive your e-mail, because your contract is with the same company (i.e BT).
However. In some cases you might of discontinued your contract but are still allowed to access your e-mail on their server
for the next three months, for example, until the contract comes to a complete end. In which case you might need to set up
POP3 to use the discontinued account server (so you can still receive your e-mail from them) and set up SMTP for use with your
new/current account server. In other words. If you have just discontinued from BT but still want to receive your e-mail from
them (off their server) you would set up POP3 as normal - mail.btinternet.com for example. If you then wanted to send e-mail
as john.smith@btinternet.com you would set up SMTP with your new/current account server details - smtp.tiscali.co.uk for example.
This means that your new ISP (Tiscali) would be the one to send your e-mail as john.smith@btinternet.com. Unfortunately though
it is not that simple. Tiscali would want Authorization that e-mail sent by john.smith@btinternet.com is coming from account
john.smith@tiscali.co.uk for example. Fortunately, windows mail can help. Authorization (Authentication) set up is explained
later, so for this example leave the tick/check box next to the OUTGOING SERVER REQUIRES AUTHENTICATION option un-ticked.
After entering your ISP's (or website's) POP3 and SMTP server details and clicking on NEXT (Fig 2.5 above), the account
wizard then asks you for your e-mail UserName & Password (Fig 2.6 below). The UserName, also known as the Account Name,
is either your e-mail address username only (i.e john.smith) or your full e-mail address (i.e john.smith@btinternet.com),
depending on your ISP's requirement. The Password will be the password you gave your ISP when setting up your P.A.YG,
Anytime or Broadband internet account. In this example I have used the username & password of the e-mail address that I
gave myself as part of this website - contactjohn@yoingco.com.
If you want to type in your password each time you send/receive e-mail un-tick the option REMEMBER PASSWORD and leave the
PASSWORD edit box empty. This is good for security reasons (i.e you do not want any trace of your password left on the
computer, such as in a password file). By putting a tick next to the REMEMBER PASSWORD option you are telling windows mail
to download your password information, stored on your computer, each time you want your ISP to verify your e-mail account
details. If you have to type your password each time it means the password is sent straight down the telephone line, pure,
and not sent down the telephone line as a password file for example.
Once you have entered your username, and password if need be, click on the NEXT button to continue.
Always keep the documentation that was sent to you by your ISP, as it normally contains POP3 Server, SMTP Server,
UserName and Password details amongst other things. These details come in handy when your computer needs re-installing or
when you want to set up an e-mail account with the same details on more than one computer (so that you can check the
same e-mail from Home and Work for example).
At this stage you have almost finished, but before you click on the FINISH button below you should put a tick next to the
DO NOT DOWNLOAD MY E-MAIL AT THIS TIME option first. The reason for doing this is because below you will still modify this
newly created e-mail account. Therefore you do not want to check if you have any e-mail, associated with this e-mail account,
at this time because you have not finished modifying it.
| SET UP AUTHENTICATION |
With the Internet Accounts window still open (Fig 2.8 above) you might want to modify some of the e-mail account details
further by adding Authentication to it. As said after Fig 2.4 above, you might need to add authentication (authorization)
to an e-mail account if you are using a different POP3 server or a different SMTP server from that of your ISP's. For
example. contactjohn@yoingco.com has no ISP with the company I registered the www.yoingco.com website with. Therefore I
have to use my ISP's (BT Internet's) server in order to send/receive e-mail as contactjohn@yoingco.com. In some cases
though, with other ISP's, I cannot just use my ISP's server to send/receive e-mail. I have to authenticate
contactjohn@yoingco.com first.
To modify an existing e-mail account first select it and then click on the PROPERTIES button to continue (Fig 3.0). This
will bring up the Properties window for that e-mail account (Fig 3.1).
The properties window is split up into miniture windows called TABs, which are basically sub-windows. They are used in cases
whereby the settings/information a to be displayed on the main window would make that main window too long/big. So the
settings/information are split up into categories and then each category is displayed inside its own TAB (window).
The first TAB of the properties window is the General TAB. The first piece of information you can change on this TAB is the
name to identify the Servers. For example. I could change mail.yoingco.com to Contact John, by typing Contact John into the
edit box. This will not change the POP3 and SMTP server names set up in Fig 2.5 above, as the name inside this edit box
is really reffering to the name of this e-mail account and not the actual server names.
Renaming makes sense when you have multiple e-mail accounts using the same server names. For example. I would not want to
use mail.yoingco.com(default), mail.yoingco.com(1) and mail.yoingco.com(2) as the e-mail account names because this might
become confusing. It would be much better to rename them Home, Business and Private for example so that I could distinguish
between them.
The second piece of information you can change is the Reply Address (Fig 3.3 below), which is the e-mail address you want people to reply to when they receive an e-mail from you. The REPLY ADDRESS Edit Box is normally empty, which means you want your reply e-mail address to be the same as your normal (send) e-mail address, but you can insert a reply e-mail address if you want to. For example. If I leave the Reply Address edit box empty and send you an e-mail it will be from (sent by) contactjohn@yoingco.com and if you were to reply to that e-mail the reply e-mail address would also be contactjohn@yoingco.com. However. If I had used info@yoingco.com as the reply email address, by inserting info@yoingco.com into the Reply Address edit box beforehand, you would of replied to info@yoingco.com. You could manually change my reply e-mail address to info@yoingco.com yourself of course before replying to my e-mail but this is only if you know I have two e-mail addresses for example. Replying to an e-mail is explained in the Reply To E-Mail section.
Regardless if you have modified any information in the General TAB or not click on the Servers TAB to continue - Click on the actual word Servers, as shown below. I would definately modify the name for the Servers (Fig 3.2 above) before continuing though, if I were you.
The only setting you need to change on the Servers TAB is the MY SERVER REQUIRES AUTHENTICATION setting, which you should put a tick next to only if your SMTP (Outgoing) Server requires authentication. If it does not require authentication, leave the MY SERVER REQUIRES AUTHENTICATION setting un-ticked.
When you put a tick next to the MY SERVER REQUIRES AUTHENTICATION setting the SETTINGS button becomes available (above). If you want your outgoing e-mail to be authenticated (authorized) using the same settings (UserName & Password) as your POP3 (Incoming) Server there is no need to click on the SETTINGS button. Otherwise, if you want to use different settings (UserName & Password) to authenticate (authorize) your outgoing e-mail, click on the SETTINGS button to bring up the Outgoing Mail Server window.
When the Outgoing Mail Server window appears for the very first time the USE SAME SETTINGS AS MY INCOMING MAIL SERVER setting is the default setting. To authenticate (authorize) your outgoing e-mail using a different UserName & Password you need to change the default setting to LOG ON USING, by clicking on its radio (circle) button. Once this is done, you then have to enter the username & password you would like to use as the authenticating username & password into their appropriate edit boxes.
In the above example I have used contactjohn@yoingco.com as the authorizing UserName, which means every time I send an email
as contactjohn@yoingco.com my SMTP Server (mail.yoingco.com) first checks who is authorized to send an e-mail with the
username contactjohn@yoingco.com. In this case contactjohn@yoingco.com is authorized to send an e-mail as contactjohn@yoingco.com.
The above is pretty straight forward. However. If I have the SMTP Server set up as mail.btinternet.com, so that the BT Server
is the one sending my e-mail, and I have my contact e-mail address as contactjohn@yoingco.com it becomes a little more complex.
To have my e-mail sent as contactjohn@yoingco.com using the BT Server I must authorize contactjohn@yoingco.com by typing
yoingco@btinternet.com into the Outgoing Mail Server window above, along with its password. Once done, this means every time
I send an e-mail as contactjohn@yoingco.com that e-mail is sent using the BT Server (mail.btinternet.com) and not my usual
Website's Server (mail.yoingco.com). The BT Server then checks who is authorized to send an e-mail as contactjohn@yoingco.com - In
this case yoingco@btinternet.com is authorized to send an e-mail as contactjohn@yoingco.com.
What the above means is that you could use any server to send your e-mail, as long as the server allows Authentication. You
would need to know the server details of course as well as the e-mail account's username & password.
When you have typed in the authorizing username & password into their appropriate edit boxes (Fig 3.8 above) click on the
OK button to take you back to the Servers TAB. From there, click on the Connection TAB.
Clicking on the Connection TAB allows you to change the ISP connection used with Windows Mail and more specifically the
connection used to connect to an e-mail account's server. Changing this setting also changes the default (normal) connection
for Internet Explorer and all your other software in general, unless that software has been set up to use a specific ISP
connection as well.
Although I only have one Dial-Up connection I have still put a tick next to the ALWAYS CONNECT TO THIS ACCOUNT USING setting.
This acts as a security feature because it means only my BTOW (BT OpenWorld) Dial-Up connection will be used with Windows Mail and
not a fake Dial-Up connection that might of been downloaded/installed by malware for example. In normal circumstances though
you would leave this setting un-ticked so that you can use the default connection, which was set up with your Broadband CD
for example.
When you have finished editing your e-mail account click on the APPLY button to apply your changes and then click on the OK
button to return to the Internet Accounts window (below). The Security window and Advanced window settings should
be left alone, although they are briefly explained below.
When you come back to the Internet Accounts window you will notice it now has an E-Mail account displayed at the top of the accounts list, named after the E-Mail account name you gave it in Fig 3.1 above. In this example it is named Contact John and is the Default e-mail account, because it is the only e-mail account. When there are other e-mail accounts you can select which one you want as the default e-mail account.
| ADVANCED SETTINGS |
Under normal circumstances the Security TAB settings are left alone. Even if you contact your ISP for advice on setting up an e-mail account they should never ask you to change the security settings unless your Windows has become corrupt or you are requiring a non-default setup (which is very rare in normal circumstances).
The Advanced TAB settings (below), under normal circumstances, should be left alone. However. If you contact your ISP for advice on setting up an e-mail account they may ask you to change some of the advanced settings.
One of the settings you might be interested in setting is the LEAVE A COPY OF MESSAGES ON SERVER. Putting a tick next to this setting (Fig 4.2 below) means you want to be able to download your e-mails but at the same time leave a copy of those e-mails on your ISP's computer (server). This is good if you have two computers as it means both computers can download a copy. With no tick next to LEAVE A COPY OF MESSAGES ON SERVER only one computer can download the e-mails before they are deleted from the server.
There are two sub-settings to the LEAVE A COPY OF MESSAGES ON SERVER setting. The first one, REMOVE FROM SERVER AFTER ? DAY(S),
will delete your e-mails from your ISP's server after the specified number of days. This setting allows you to keep your
e-mails, on your ISP's server, much longer than normal which works well in E-Mail Back-Up scenarios. The second sub-setting,
REMOVE FROM SERVER WHEN DELETED FROM 'DELETED ITEMS', means a specific e-mail will be deleted from your ISP's server only when
it is deleted by you or windows mail from the Deleted Items folder in windows mail. Again, this is good in E-Mail Back-Up
scenarios and also helps keep your ISP's server uncluttered if you regularly delete unwanted/finished-with e-mails.
When you have finished editing the Security and/or Advanced settings click on the APPLY button to apply your changes and
then click on the OK button to return to the Internet Accounts window (Fig 3.10 above).
Microsoft product screen shot(s) reprinted with permission from Microsoft Corporation. As stated here by the Microsoft Corporation.
All HTM files in the yoingco.com folder and its sub-folders are (c) John White, August 3rd 2005 - 2008. All Rights Reserved. FREE Vista Helpline: Contact John