Most of us have both the Outlook programs on our computer: the
Microsoft Outlook and the Outlook Express. On the face of it, both
look more-or-less the same, and few of us actually take the trouble
to find out their plus and minus points. But I did examine both of
them carefully with surprising results, and I would like to share my
findings with you. You will certainly be able to get more out of both
of them with this information.
Recently my Norton Anti-Virus (NAV) detected a virus coming through
email. This happened as my preview pane was open in the Inbox and it
opened the virus email automatically as soon as it was downloaded.
The NAV could not repair the file so I had to delete the infected
file. I found to my utter horror that deleting the file disabled my
browser. It also disabled my CD writer. I had to save my data using
Iomega 250MB zip drive which fortunately worked but only in the slow
SAFE mode of Windows! Ultimately I had to Quick Restore my Compaq
computer. It took me 2 days to reload various programs and data! This
could have been avoided if I had taken a few simple precautions. I
have written out these precautions towards the end of this article.
Differences between the two Outlooks:
1.Outlook Express (OE in short) comes with Internet Explorer
browser, whereas MS Outlook (MSO in short) is a part of MS OFFICE.
2.OE can download news from newsgroups. MSO cannot.
3.OE uses "identities" to configure mail account. Identities allow
multiple people to use OE without sharing a common inbox. The
messages are saved separately for each identity. When you input your
identity it opens a full and separate OE program. When you switch
identities, the program is closed (exited), and again a full and
separate OE program is opened. This feature allows multiple users to
have their own password-protected email program on one single
computer. This feature is not available with MSO.
4.MSO has IPM features such as calendar, tasks and notes. These
features are not present in OE.
5.MSO can activate the feature "don't download messages larger than -
KB" Sets a maximum size for messages that will be downloaded.
Large messages can take a long time to download and can increase your
connection time. If you use a local area network (LAN), this setting
is ignored. It's a shame that the setting is ignored for LAN. I find
this is very useful to firewall virus file attachments, which are
usually above 100KB in size.
6.In MSO as well as OE, you can select all the messages in a folder
by opening the folder and clicking Select All from the Edit menu. But
its only in MSO that you can do a Save As. With more than one message
selected, the Save As feature is de-activated in OE. Thus when you
Save As in MSO, you can save all the messages in the folder in one
text file. This not only makes it quick to save the messages, but
they can then be opened in notepad, WordPad or MS Word, which all
have find or search feature which makes locating of any message a
very simple task
7.MSO can use any of the MS OFFICE formats to New Send mail. MS
OFFICE Access, Power Point, Excel, or Word. This is not possible
with OE.
Similarities:
1.Both OE and MSO are very similar to their mail receiving and
filing function.
2.Both OE and MSO do offer backgrounds through "new mail using…" menu.
3.Preview pane could be kept shut when inbox is opened in both OE
and MSO
4.Configuring accounts is very similar.
5.Both programs can disable automatic download of emails.
6.Both can have multiple accounts in the same user or identity.
OE is better for:
1.Multiple users using the same computer.
2.For news from newsgroups on news server.
MSO is better for:
1.Large volume of emails to be saved in text format for easy
accessibility.
2.For sending emails in MS OFFICE formats.
Tips for configuring both OE and MSO to block viruses
1.Switch off the preview panel in the INBOX. This prevents any virus
getting into your system by automatic opening.
2.Switch off the "include this account when receiving mail or
synchronizing" for every account you have. You can do this by
disabling (no tick mark) on this feature, which you will find by menu
chain: Tools, Accounts, account-name, properties, General. This will
ensure that the mail is not flowing-in automatically.
3.Before downloading mail, access the mail on the net. Most of these
webmail sites show the size of the files, which unfortunately is not
a feature with either OE or MSO. Any mail over 100KB is suspect
should be deleted. Also delete any junk mail. Only download and
receive mail that you want to save on your computer.
4.To download and receive mail, don't click on Send/Receive on the
mail Tool Bar, but go into Tools, and move the curser on
"Send/Receive" and move right to get a sub-menu where you select the
precise account, with which you want to send or receive.
5.Send by clicking on the small arrow next to "Send", and selecting
the precise account by which to send. The mail will wait in the
Outbox till you send through the Tools, Send/Receive menu as given in
3 above.
About the Author
Dilip Dahanukar is an experienced author. His all-new eBook “How to
Write Pop-Up Emails” is a simple step-by-step tutorial. A Template
makes it even easier! http://www.netbizzquick.com/WhatPop.htm
Check it out! Contact the author at mailto:dilipsd@vsnl.in