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Readme for Microsoft Outlook(TM) Express Version 5

January 1999
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(c) Copyright Microsoft Corporation, 1999

This document provides complementary or late-breaking information

to supplement online Help in Outlook Express. Outlook Express 5
ships with Internet Explorer 5 and Internet Tools.

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How to View This Document
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To view the Readme file on the screen in Windows Notepad, maximize
the Notepad window. To print the Readme file, open it in Notepad or
another word processor, and then click Print on the File menu.

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CONTENTS
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1. MICROSOFT OUTLOOK EXPRESS

2. NEW FEATURES IN THIS RELEASE

3. KNOWN ISSUES IN THIS RELEASE

4. TROUBLESHOOTING

5. TIPS AND TRICKS

6. SUPPORT FOR MICROSOFT OUTLOOK EXPRESS

=================================
Part 1: MICROSOFT OUTLOOK EXPRESS
=================================

Outlook Express is an Internet standards based e-mail and news

reader.

To read e-mail with Outlook Express, you must be using a mail system
that uses SMTP and POP3 or IMAP protocols. If you don't know whether
your e-mail system supports Outlook Express, contact your administrator
or your Internet service provider and ask if they support POP3 or IMAP
mail clients.

You can use Outlook Express to read newsgroups, or discussion groups,

such as the Usenet, by using NNTP-based news servers. Contact your
Internet service provider (ISP) or network administrator for the
name of the news server that you should use. Outlook Express can also
be used to receive support for a variety of Microsoft products on the
news server msnews.microsoft.com.

Outlook Express also includes Windows Address Book version 5, which

provides rich contact management capabilities, including the ability to
create groups of contacts and folders to help you organize your e-mail
and personal addresses. The Windows Address Book also provides access to
Internet directories that use LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol).
Internet directories are an easy way to find e-mail or street addresses.
A number of popular Internet directories are pre-configured for easy
access.

====================================
Part 2: NEW FEATURES IN THIS RELEASE
====================================

- Identities for multiple users.

With the Identity Manager, you can create profiles for different Outlook
Express users. These profiles are shared by applications such as Outlook
Express and Windows Address Book.

- Support for Hotmail accounts.

Outlook Express can now read and manage your Hotmail Inbox and folders, as
well as synchronize your Hotmail contacts with the contacts in your Windows
Address Book.

- Offline support and message synchronization.

You can download News and IMAP folders for viewing offline. Actions
performed offline (such as sending messages and moving messages
within an IMAP account) will be performed when you go back online.

- Contacts pane.
The contacts in your Windows Address Book are now visible in the main
Outlook Express window.

- Enhanced message rules.

Enhanced rules support for more criteria and actions, including blocking
message senders with a single click, and offering rules for newsgroups.

- Multiple signatures.
You can create an unlimited number of signatures, and each signature
can be associated with one or more mail or news accounts.

- Easier to use secure mail (S/MIME).

Outlook Express automatically finds and associates digital certificates
installed on your machine with your mail accounts and automatically
adds digital certificates that others send you to the Windows Address Book.

- Phone dialer integration.

It's easy to place a telephone call to a contact in the Windows Address
Book using the phone dialer installed on your system.

- IMAP drafts and sent items.

Outlook Express can store in-progress messages in a server-based Drafts
folder and store copies of sent messages in a Sent Items folder on the
IMAP server.

- IMAP folder manager.

You can customize which IMAP folders are visible or hidden (subscribed or
unsubscribed) in the folder list.

- Advanced Internet directory search.

Searches against Internet directory (LDAP) servers can be performed with
additional criteria and logical operators.
- Watch conversation and ignore conversation.
You can designate a news or mail conversation as "watched" so that you
can see when new messages arrive on that topic. You can also designate a
conversation as "ignored" so that you will not see future messages on
that topic.

- HTML source editing.

You can easily edit the source of an HTML message to include advanced
HTML tags.

- Customizable message filters.

You can customize what messages are hidden or shown based on more than a
dozen criteria.

- Stationery wizard.
It's now even easier to customize HTML stationery, including setting up
margins, fonts, background images, and colors.

- Improved connection management

Outlook Express 5 can share connection settings with Internet Explorer 5,
and detects when you have disconnected your phone or have disconnected
from a LAN. When a connection is needed, Outlook Express will now connect
automatically or prompt you.

====================================
Part 3: KNOWN ISSUES IN THIS RELEASE
====================================

- Junk mail filtering is not available in this version of Outlook Express.

- The Identity Manager provides an easy way to group user settings and
change users across applications, but it does not provide security for
messages, application settings, and digital certificates. If you need
stronger security, you should use Windows logon profiles to manage
user settings.

- When uninstalling Outlook Express 5, the messages you have received in

Outlook Express 5 will remain in the Outlook Express 5 message files.
If you were previously running Outlook Express 4 or Internet Mail and
News, only the messages you received in those programs will be there
after uninstall.

- After uninstalling Outlook Express 5, you can import messages received

in Outlook Express 5 into Outlook Express 4: In Outlook Express 4, click
on File, then click Import, click Messages, and then follow the on-screen
instructions.

- If you install Outlook 98 after installing Outlook Express 5, the shortcut

to the Microsoft Outlook Newsreader may not work. To fix, open your start
menu and click Programs, right-click the Microsoft Outlook Newsreader in
the list of Programs on the start menu and then click Properties. In the
Target box, type (exactly as below):

"C:\Program Files\Outlook Express\msimn.exe" /outnews

- When importing contacts into Microsoft Phone, the contacts show up in Phone
but not in the Windows Address Book. The workaround is to click on the File
 menu in Outlook Express, then click Import, and run through the import
again. Then the contacts will show up in the Address Book.

- In order for Outlook Express to work on a dual-boot machine, you must install
the same version of Outlook Express on both operating systems.

- If you were using the PGP plug-in to Outlook Express 4, you must uninstall it
before installing Outlook 5. If you installed Outlook Express 5 before
uninstalling the PGP plug-in, Outlook Express 5 will not start. To
fix, uninstall Outlook Express 5, uninstall the PGP plug-in from the Add/Remove
Programs Control Panel, and then install Outlook Express 5.

- You cannot use Outlook Express to access your e-mail account with
any of the following services: MS Mail, cc:Mail, CompuServe, America
Online (AOL), or Microsoft Exchange Server prior to version 5.

- You will not be able to see embedded objects or images sent from
people using Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Exchange, or Windows
Messaging. File attachments work fine, however.

- If you used Internet News for reading newsgroups, any messages

in your "Posted Items" folder will be moved into the "Sent Items
folder when you upgrade to Outlook Express.

- Outlook Express shows subscribed IMAP folders only in the

folder list. It no longer shows all your folders (subscribed and
unsubscribed).

- The View filter "Show Replies to my Messages" only shows message conversations
for which you were the author of the original post. Replies to your
replies will not be visible.

- Message Rules are not available for IMAP accounts.

- If the option is set to encrypt all outgoing messages, any rules with the action
"Forward" in them will not be executed.

- Messages received without proper character set encoding information can be

read by selecting the proper encoding from the View menu. However, forwarding
or replying to these messages after choosing Auto Select will improperly mark
the character set on the outgoing message. To avoid this problem, select the
another encoding when forwarding or replying to messages with no character set
encoding information.

- HTTP mail accounts do not support folder names that contain a forward slash
("/").
If a folder name on an HTTP account contains this character, use a Web browser
such
as Internet Explorer to access your account and rename the folder. Hotmail
accounts
can be accessed at http://www.hotmail.com/.

=======================
Part 4: TROUBLESHOOTING
=======================

- If you are unable to send or receive mail, make sure of the following:
 1. The TCP/IP protocol is installed on your computer.
2. All cables are properly connected to your computer, modem, or LAN.
3. You have a PPP or SLIP account with your Internet service
provider.
4. Your Internet service provider or LAN server supports POP3 or
IMAP and SMTP.
5. Your modem communication parameters (baud rate and type of
protocol) are set correctly.

- If you are unable to read or post news, make sure that you use an account
name and password for a news server only if it requires them. If you use
an account name and password and they are not required, you will not be able
to connect to the news server.

- If you run into a problem, try the Troubleshooting section in

online Help:

1. On the Help menu, and then click Contents and Index.

2. Click the "Troubleshooting" topic on the Contents tab.
3. Click "If you have trouble using Outlook Express."

- Frequently Asked Questions and popular help topics on Outlook Express

are available on the Microsoft Web site at:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/ie/outlookexpress/win32/

- To access the Microsoft peer product support newsgroups, folllow

these steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click Accounts.

2. On the News tab, click Add, and then click News
3. Follow the directions on your screen.
4. When you are prompted for a server name, type
msnews.microsoft.com

If that name isn't found by your Internet service provider, you

can type 131.107.3.27 instead.

You do not need to log on to this news server.

=======================
Part 5: TIPS AND TRICKS
=======================

- To send a message to someone in the Windows Address Book,

double-click on the name of the contact in the Contacts area.

- To edit the source of an HTML message you are writing, on

View menu, click Source Edit. Three tabs will appear at the
bottom of the Window. Click the Source tab to see and change
the HTML.

- To change the New Mail Notification sound, double-click the Sounds

icon in Control Panel, and select New Mail Notification from the events
list. Use the drop-down list in the Sound section to see your choices.

- To look up a person's e-mail address when sending mail, use the Check
Names command, available on the Tools menu or on the New Message toolbar.
 The name will become underlined when the associated address is found.

- To send a mail message in Plain Text only (no HTML formatting),

on the Format menu, click Plain Text. To make Plain Text the default
setting for new messages, replies, and forwarded messages, on the Tools
menu, click Options, click the Send tab, and then select Plain Text under
Mail Sending Format. (News messages are sent in Plain Text by default,
but similarly, this setting can be changed under News Sending Format.)

- To customize the toolbar, right-click it and use the menu commands

to perform the desired actions.

- You can resize the preview pane or the message list by dragging the
divider between the preview pane and the message list.

- You can change how the preview pane splits, or turn it off entirely,
by clicking the View menu, clicking Layout, and then changing the options
in the dialog box.

- To view the e-mail address of someone who has sent you a message,
double-click the message to open it, then double-click the author's
name in the From field. You can also add this person to your Address
Book by right-clicking the name, and then clicking Add To Address
Book.

- To view responses to a particular message in a newsgroup, click the

plus sign (+) next to the message. The responses appear indented
below it.

- In mail, you can leave a copy of your messages on the server. To set
this option, on the Tools menu, click Accounts. Select the mail account
you want to modify, and then click Properties. Click the Advanced tab,
and then check the Leave A Copy Of Messages On Server check box.

- You can search for newsgroups that contain specific words in their
names. To do this:

1. On the Tools menu, click Newsgroups.

2. In the "Display newsgroups which contain" box, enter the words
separated by a space.

You can also search newsgroup descriptions. If you cannot see the
descriptions, on the Tools menu click Accounts. Select the news account
you want to modify, click Properties, and then click the Advanced tab.
Next, check the Use Newsgroup Descriptions check box.� Click the Tools
menu again, and then click Newsgroups. In the Newsgroups window, click
the "Reset List" button.

- To reorder columns, you can drag and drop column headings. Columns
can be resized by dragging the right edge of the column header.

- To hang up, choose Work Offline from the File menu and click Yes when
asked if you want to hang up.

- To make Outlook Express connect and check mail on a regular interval,

make sure the option to "Send and receive messages every X minutes" is
enabled and change "If my computer is not connected at this time" to
"Always Connect" or "Connect if Work Offline is not checked." These
 settings are on the General tab in Options available in the Tools menu.

- If any of your mail or news accounts requires you to use a specific

ISP connection, enable the option to "Always connect to this account
using" and select the appropriate account. This option is available in
the Connection tab in the Properties of each account. This option is
mainly used by people who use multiple connections, such as LAN and a
dial-up connection or two dial-up connections.

- To check for new messages at start up, enable the option to "Send and
receive messages every X minutes" on the General tab in Options and make
sure that each account you want to check has the option to "Include this
account in Send and Receive All" enabled on the General tab in the
Properties of each account. The option "At Start up, ask me if I would
like to connect" only initiates a connection. It does not check for mail.

- The Dial-up Connection option "At Start up, ask me if I would like to
connect" will always prompt you to dial a modem at start up even if a
LAN connection exists. If you primarily use LAN, turn off this option.

- To disable the "Connect automatically" behavior for any of your dial-up

accounts, click Cancel while connecting to the account. This will bring
up the Dial-up Connection window and allow you to uncheck the "Connect
automatically" option.

- If you are running Outlook Express on Windows NT and you need to add
support for a different language, double-click the Keyboard icon in
Control Panel, and then click Add. Follow the instructions on your
screen. This installs the appropriate NLS (National Language
Support) files. You do not have to use the associated keyboard
layout.

=============================================
Part 6: SUPPORT FOR MICROSOFT OUTLOOK EXPRESS
=============================================

For the latest information about Outlook Express as well as a list of

Frequently Asked Questions, see our Web page at
http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie40/oe/. You may find that your
questions can be answered here.

A newsgroup is dedicated to the discussion of Microsoft Outlook

Express and provides peer support:

- news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.inetexplorer.ie5beta.OutlookExpress

To read it, follow the procedure outlined in the Troubleshooting section

above.

This site is the best place to go if you are experiencing a problem,

as someone else who experienced the same problem might already have
posted the solution.

For advanced support issues, go to http://support.microsoft.com/support.