Among the many new things you'll find when you fire up Windows Vista is Windows Mail, a replacement for Microsoft's old and mostly unloved Outlook Express mail client. Although it greatly improves on its predecessor, Windows Mail — like any OS-integrated product — sports a feature-set that is somewhat limited.
Windows Vista or XP users that want a more capable e-mail client than either Outlook Express or Windows Mail but don't want to shell out for the full version of Outlook will want to take a close look at Microsoft's Windows Live Mail, a free (though ad-supported) alternative.
Formerly known as Windows Live Mail, the new and improved Windows Live Mail 8.5 — which is still in beta — is a full-featured desktop mail client that can provide offline access to your Web-based MSN Hotmail or Windows Live Mail accounts (the latter is also in beta but will ultimately replace MSN Hotmail). But beyond that, WLM lets you manage multiple POP accounts and access RSS feeds, and it integrates with various other Windows Live services, too.
Setup
You can download a copy of WLM at ideas.live.com. Not surprisingly, you'll need to have a Windows Live ID (formerly Microsoft Passport) to install and use the software, and this requirement holds even if you don't want, have, or plan to use a Windows Live Mail or Hotmail account.
WLM can import existing e-mail messages and account settings from your Outlook, Outlook Express, or Vista's Windows Mail installation, but not from non-Microsoft mail clients like Mozilla Thunderbird (we'd be surprised if this capability wasn't added by the time the software is released).
You can add your own POP or IMAP accounts to WLM through a setup wizard similar to that of Outlook/Outlook Express. The wizards will try to automatically determine certain types of account information on your behalf like your user name and mail server addresses, but it's easy to override this feature should you prefer to fill the data manually. We had no trouble getting WLM to work with numerous POP accounts from various providers, including a Gmail account (for that you must first enable POP access through Google's control panel, however).
If you ever want to add a new account to WLM, you can do so using a convenient button right on the program's main view instead of having to delve down through menu options. Perhaps assuming that people are likely to use WLM to manage Web-based mail accounts (or owing to the beta nature of the software) new accounts are automatically set to leave a copy of all messages on the server.
Mail
WLM's user interface really shines when used with multiple e-mail accounts. Managing and navigating between several accounts is easy — each one has its own inbox and attendant subfolders, and you can move accounts up or down in the left-pane heirarchy. Each set of account folders is also color-coded to help you more easily discern them at a glance (there are seven colors to choose from).
WLM includes both spam and phishing protection, and it conveniently groups all security-related settings under a single heading called E-Mail Safety Options. This is the place to do things like configure safe and blocked sender lists for the junk mail filter and control whether graphics are automatically downloaded with incoming mail. WLM will also let you automatically block mail from any top-level domain or messages containing specified character sets, so you can say goodbye to all that .ru spam or unwanted messages in Cyrillic or Hebrew.
Text ads in WLM are displayed in the rightmost side of the program using a dim and rather unobtrusive font, and since they're generated based on the contents of your mail, the ads change along with the active message. You can easily turn off this Active Search feature, in which case the text ads turn into the same kind of graphical column-style ads you'd find on a Web page. The column ads don't change nearly as often as the text ones, but they can be more distracting since they're apt to contain videos (albeit silent ones), animations, or other elements designed to grab your attention.
Man (or woman) seldom lives by e-mail alone, and like Outlook Express, WLM can also serve as a Usenet newsgroup reader. But unlike OE or Vista's Windows Mail, you can also use WLM to monitor RSS feeds. WLM will automatically pull feeds you've already saved in Internet Explorer 7 — in fact, you need IE 7 to use the RSS feature at all — but at least for the moment, there's no way to import a list from any other reader (like via an OPML file).
Another nice feature of WLM is its inline spell checking, which you get even if you don't have Office installed. WLM also makes searching through mail, newsgroups, or feeds pretty simple — no matter where you are in the program, a search box is prominently displayed that returns results quickly.
As you might expect, WLM makes it easy to access and share information between other services in the Windows Live family. You can start a text chat or voice/video call using Windows Live Messenger or post content to a Windows Live Spaces blog directly from WLM.
A related feature is Photo Mail, which you can use to embed photos into e-mails, then add captions and borders. Photos are automatically uploaded to Live Spaces where mail recipients can view slideshow (photos disappear after 30 days).
This Windows Live integration is a double-edged sword if you're not using Microsoft's online offerings (or don't care to), because WLM's rudimentary PIM-like features are also tied to them. For example, WLM's contact manager is part and parcel of Windows Messenger, and clicking on WLM's calendar feature takes you to your Hotmail account calendar page (thus, no Hotmail account, no calendar feature).
Even though it's still in beta, WLM is already a quantum leap ahead of its Outlook Express predecessor. And while there's still work to be done, Windows Live Mail is shaping up to be an excellent e-mail client that should appeal to a wide range of users. Its security features and in particular its excellent handling of multiple POP accounts may even tempt some that have previously abandoned Microsoft e-mail clients.
Pros: Superb interface with separate color-coded inboxes for multiple POP accounts, supports RSS feeds, integrates well with Windows Live services
Cons: Advertising-supported, use requires Windows Live ID, currently doesn't import from non-Microsoft products
