PCTips - Outlook Express

Click the links to the following tips:

Outlook Express Closes Internet Connection

How to set up a new e-mail account in Outlook Express

How to change an e-mail account in Outlook Express

How to stop Outlook Express blocking attachments

All e-mail text appears as an attachment in Outlook Express

How to configure Outlook Express to receive Gmail

Use an old e-mail address through a new ISP

How to set-up Outlook Express to send and receive e-mail from a previous ISP

Lost E-mail Files

Remove the branding from Outlook Express

How to access the same Outlook Express from two (or more) different User Accounts on the same PC

Read your e-mail safely

How to keep using your old e-mail address when changing to a new ISP.

Why do I keep getting Outlook Express error messages?

How to Change the Compose Font Settings in Outlook Express or Windows Mail

Send an e-mail to the whole Address Book

How to backup your Outlook Express e-mails

How to restore Outlook Express e-mails from backup

Archive Outlook Express E-mails

Outlook Express doesn’t send or receive

Outlook Express Closes Internet Connection

This is caused by a setting that harks back to the old days when connecting to the internet was costly.

People wanted to make sure that they would be disconnected as soon as they had sent and received their email.

Open Outlook Express

Left-click “Tools” and then left-click “Options…”

Left-click the “Connection” tab.

Left-click in the little white square to remove the tick next to “Hang up after sending and receiving”.

Left-click “OK”.

How to set-up a new account in Outlook Express

* Check that you know your valid e-mail address and password.
* You will also need to know the appropriate POP and SMTP server names for your ISP.
* Open Outlook Express and click Tools then Accounts.* Click Add and then Mail.
* The Internet Connection Wizard will open.
* Be very careful not to make any typing mistakes when entering things into this Wizard - the mail servers will not correct you, they will just fail to respond.
* Enter Display Name (your normal friendly name, not your email address).
* Then click Next and enter your E-mail address
* Next again and enter the server names.
* Next again - type in the correct Account name - usually the same as your email address (but on Freeserve you should delete the part before and including the @ i.e make it just read joebloggs.freeserve.co.uk)
* Add your Password. Make sure that "Remember password" is ticked, then Next then Finish.
* Your newly created account will be shown, but because Microsoft programmers are stupid it will be called by the name of your pop server.
* Click on that name, then click the Properties button.
* Change the highlighted pop name to something sensible like your name. Make sure that "Include this account when receiving mail or synchronizing" is ticked.
* Click OK then Close.

How to change an account in Outlook Express
* Check that you know the correct e-mail address and password.
* You will also need to know the correct POP and SMTP server names for your ISP.
* Open Outlook Express and left click Tools then Accounts.
* Left click to highlight the account that you want to change.
* Then left click on the Properties button.
* Be very careful when changing things here - the mail servers will not correct you, they will just fail to respond.
* Mail Account can be called anything - it's just for your use.
* Name should be your normal friendly name, not your email address.
* Organization can be anything you like.
* E-mail address should be correct and perfectly typed.
* Reply address can be a different address - but it should be one of yours because that's where replies will go if you fill it in.
* Make sure that "Include this account when receiving mail or synchronizing" is ticked.
* Click Servers button and enter the correct server names.
* Now type in the correct Account name - usually the same as your email address (but on Freeserve you should delete the part before and including the @ i.e make it just read joebloggs.freeserve.co.uk)
* Add your Password. Make sure that "Remember password" is ticked.
* You should normally leave the final two boxes blank.
* Click OK then Close.

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How to stop Outlook Express blocking attachments

Open Outlook Express

Left-click "Tools" and then left-click "Options..."

Left-click the "Security" tab.

Left-click in the little white square to remove the tick next to "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus".

Left-click "OK".

Don't worry, you will still get a warning about attachments before you open them.

All email text appears as an attachment in Outlook Express

Check encoding - open Outlook Express
Left-click "Tools" then "Options..."
Left-click "Read" then "Fonts..."
Encoding should read "Western European (ISO)"
Left-click "OK"
Left-click "International Settings..."
Default encoding should read "Western European (ISO)" and there should be a tick against "Use default encoding for all incoming messages"
Left-click "OK"
Left-click "Send" then "International Settings..."
Default encoding should read "Western European (ISO)" and there should be a tick against "When replying to message always use English headers"
Left-click "OK", then left-click "OK" again
Left-click "Create Mail", then in the new window left-click "Format" Encoding should read "Western European (ISO)".

How to configure Outlook Express to receive Gmail

First you need to log into Gmail and click on ‘Settings’ then ‘Forwarding and POP’ then one of the ‘Enable POP’ options.

Click 'Save Changes' and then log out of Gmail

Open Outlook Express.
Click the 'Tools' menu, and select 'Accounts...'
Click 'Add,' and then click 'Mail...'
Enter your name in the 'Display name:' field, and click 'Next.'
Enter your full Gmail email address (username@gmail.com) in the 'Email address:' field, and click 'Next.'
Enter 'pop.gmail.com' in the 'Incoming mail (POP3, IMAP or HTTP) server:' field. Enter 'smtp.gmail.com' in the 'Outgoing mail (SMTP) server:' field.
Click 'Next.'
Enter your Gmail username (including '@gmail.com') in the 'Account name:' field. Enter your Gmail password in the 'Password:' field, and click 'Next.'
Click 'Finish.'
Highlight 'pop.gmail.com' under 'Account,' and click 'Properties.'
Click the 'Advanced' tab.
Tick the box next to 'This server requires a secure connection (SSL)' under 'Outgoing Mail (SMTP).'
Enter '465' in the 'Outgoing mail (SMTP):' field.
Tick the box next to 'This server requires a secure connection (SSL)' under 'Incoming mail (POP3).' The port will change to 995.
*The order of 'Outgoing' and 'Incoming' mail server fields varies by version. Make sure you enter the correct information in each field.
Click the 'Servers' tab, and tick the box next to 'My server requires authentication.'
Click 'OK.'

Use an old e-mail address through a new ISP

Many people round here are signing up for cheap (or free) broadband from a provider who is not their current dial-up ISP.

What they are not told, and are therefore probably not aware of, is that they will eventually have to change their e-mail address, because their old ISP will not continue to allow them to use their old e-mail address if they do not give them any income from the dial-up phone charges.

Fortunately it will be some time (probably several months) before their old ISP realises that they are not getting any dial-up phone charges and cuts off the old e-mail account.

Meanwhile, you can usually continue to use the old e-mail account through the new ISP - with one small change of settings.

First of all, (if your new broadband suppliers setup disc has not already done it,) you should set up a new e-mail account with your new ISP. See: How to set up a new e-mail account in Outlook Express

Make a note of the Outgoing mail (SMTP) server name (usually something like smtp.newisp.com)

If you still have your old e-mail account set up in Outlook Express you should change it as follows:

Open Outlook Express and left click Tools then Accounts.
Left click to highlight the account that you want to change.
Then left click on the Properties button.
Left click Servers tab and change the Outgoing mail (SMTP) server name to the one for your NEW ISP.
Click OK then Close.

If you don’t still have your old e-mail account set up in Outlook Express then see: How to set-up Outlook Express to send and receive e-mail from a previous ISP

In most cases this should allow you to send and receive e-mail to and from your old ISP. But you should actively inform and convert all your e-mail contacts to your new ISP e-mail address as soon as you can because one day, without any warning, your old ISP will stop your e-mail.

Unfortunately the procedures here do not work for all ISPs. Some will not allow outgoing messages from other ISP accounts, others will not allow incoming messages to other ISP accounts. Maybe someone could put together a comprehensive listing? No - just try it and see - it works in more cases than it doesn’t, but that’s all I can say.

How to set-up Outlook Express to send and receive e-mail from a previous ISP

In this example, current ISP is NewISP, old ISP is OldISP.

Visit old ISP's web site (oldisp.co.uk) and use their webmail service to check that your old e-mail address and password (you can remember them can't you?) are still active and recognised.
If not, use the "Retrieve Account" option on their web site.

Also ensure that you know the POP server name for OldISP - if not, look it up while you are on Old ISP's web site

Now open Outlook Express and click Tools then Accounts.

Click Add and then Mail.
The Internet Connection Wizard will open.

Be very careful not to make any typing mistakes when entering things into this Wizard - the mail servers will not correct you, they will just fail to respond.

Enter Display Name - that’s your name as you would like it to appear in the From field of an outgoing message.

Then click Next and enter your old ISP email address.

Next again and enter the server names - in this case, something like pop.oldisp.net and smtp.newisp.net (yes, the OLD pop server and the NEW smtp server)

Next again - your OldISP account name will be shown, but you may have to add the “@oldisp” part to it. Then type your OldISP password. Make sure that "Remember password" is ticked, then Next then Finish.

Your newly created account will be shown, but for some unknown reason it will be called by the name of the pop server.

Click on that name, then click Properties.
Change the highlighted pop name to something sensible like OldISP. Make sure that "Include this account when receiving mail or synchronizing" is ticked.
OK and Close.

Now, if everything has been done correctly, OE will check your old e-mail account every time you “Send and receive”.

Remember that some ISPs may not let you send mail from your old ISP e-mail address through their server, so in that case every time you send mail make sure that OE has selected the correct "From" address.

(When you have more than one account set up in OE it selects the default “From” address for new e-mails but for replies it selects the “To” address that the original e-mail was sent to).

Lost E-mail Files

If you seem to have lost your mail, this could be due to upgrading Internet Explorer, which may also have upgraded Outlook Express.

The folders shouldn’t be lost, just in the wrong place or with the wrong names - OE4 used .mbx files but OE5 and 6 use .dbx files.

The folders holding these are hidden folders, so make sure that Windows Explorer (My Computer) is set (Tools, Folder Options, View tab) to show hidden folders and also to show file extensions.

Run a search on disk C for *.mbx or *.dbx to find the location of the ‘lost’ folders. Write it down. Open Outlook Express and choose File menu, Import messages - select the option to import from OE4 or OE5, click Browse and go to the location that you wrote down.

Remove the branding from Outlook Express

Are you annoyed by the Title at the top of Outlook Express saying “Outlook Express provided by some ISP that you don’t use any more”?

Then this is for you:

Warning, this tip uses the Registry editor - only change what I say below. If you change anything else you could wreck Windows. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Start, Run, Regedit, OK
Edit, Find "WindowTitle" (no space between words), Find Next (Wait whilst it searches)
Right click, Modify
Change to whatever you want, OK
F3 to find any more until you reach the end
Return to the top of the Registry
X out

How to access the same Outlook Express from two (or more) different User Accounts on the same PC

Let’s say that a husband and wife have a common e-mail address (we’ve all seen them, they’re slightly naff and are usually of the form “fredandfreda@myisp.com”).

But although they have a common e-mail address they have separate user accounts on the family PC.

The husband already has his Outlook Express set up to receive the family e-mail but the wife can’t see it from her user account. How can they each access the same Outlook Express files from their own user account?

The answer is to set up Outlook Express on the wife’s account by copying the settings from the husband’s. And to change the message store location of both to be the same folder.

In slightly more detail the procedure is as follows:

Start in the user account that already has the e-mail set up.
Double left click My Computer
Double left click your Hard Disk (usually C:)
Right click in some empty space below the list of files and select New, then Folder and left click it.
A new folder called New Folder will appear at the bottom of the list of files. It will be highlighted so that you can change its name.
Change its name to Mail.

Open Outlook Express and left click Tools at the top of the window.
Left click Options... and then the Maintenance tab
Left click the Store Folder button and then Change...
Left click to select the Mail folder that you just created and left click OK, then the next OK and the next OK that tells you that your store location will not be changed until you shutdown and restart Outlook Express. So do just that.

Left click Tools at the top of the window and then Accounts.
Copy onto paper the e-mail settings. If you need to know what to note down, see my tip: Changing an account.

Change into the other user account.

Open Outlook Express and set up the e-mail account to be identical - see my tip: Setting up a new account

Left click Tools at the top of the window.
Left click Options... and then the Maintenance tab
Left click the Store Folder button and then Change...
Left click to select the Mail folder that you created and left click OK, then the next OK, then Yes (to switch to using the shared Mail folder) and the next OK that tells you that your store location will not be changed until you shutdown and restart Outlook Express. Click OK to get out of the Options box and then close down and reopen Outlook Express.

You should now be able to use and see the same Outlook Express files and settings as on the other user account. Except for the Address Book. That’s for another tip!

If you are confident changing Registry settings there is another way to do this, (including the Address Book). It involves exporting Registry settings from the “husbands” account and importing them into the “wife’s” account. The tip is fully explained in Kellys Korner which is one of the sites on my links page.

Read your e-mail safely

By default, Outlook Express/Windows Mail is set to open and show the currently selected e-mail in the “Preview Pane” underneath the list of e-mails in the currently open folder. And if you delete an e-mail the next one in the list will be automatically selected and opened in the preview pane even though you may not want to open it.

Also by default, Outlook Express/Windows Mail is set to read and send e-mails in HTML (web page language).

So the preview pane opens and shows the current e-mail in HTML format.

But HTML can contain executable programs - in other words, viruses and spyware can be installed on your PC just by viewing an infected HTML e-mail in the preview pane.

There are two ways to prevent any possible infection from this default setup:

1. Switch off the preview pane - left click through View, Layout... and then deselect Show Preview Pane. Now you will only see the list of e-mails in the folder. Double left click on the ones that you want to read.

2 . View your e-mails in plain text - then if you know and trust the sender you can choose to view the message in HTML if you want.

It is also good practice to always send your e-mails in plain text, so that the recipient knows that there can be nothing nasty hiding in your e-mail.

Open Outlook Express/Windows Mail and left click on Tools, then on Options
Left click the Read tab and select Read all messages in plain text
Left click the Send tab and select Plain Text under Mail Sending Format and again under News Sending Format.
Left click OK

HTML e-mail is usually in two parts - the HTML version and a plain text version. So now, when you receive an HTML e-mail, you will see and read the plain text, but the HTML version will be shown as an attachment (look for the paperclip in the top right hand corner), even if it is little more than just text.

If you get an e-mail that is difficult or impossible to read in plain text AND YOU ARE CONFIDENT THAT IT IS FROM A SAFE SOURCE then you can view it in HTML by left clicking View and then Message in HTML.

It will probably still not look right because images not sent with the e-mail will not be displayed until you click the warning above the e-mail. When you click that you are requesting the images from a server and could be unwittingly informing a spammer that their message had reached a genuine e-mail address and someone gullible enough to read it. More spam will then arrive!

Try to resist opening unfamiliar e-mails in HTML and requesting the images. You could get more than you bargained for. Curiosity killed the cat!

How to keep using your old e-mail address when changing to a new ISP.

Let’s assume that you have been using a dial-up internet connection from, say “OLDISP” and you have signed up for broadband with “NEWISP”.

All your friends have your email address with “OLDISP” and you want to keep using it.

Before I start let me warn that although the procedure below will usually work, it depends upon “OLDISP” continuing to let you use your old e-mail address - and as you will no longer be paying them any money, directly or indirectly, they are quite within their rights to kill your e-mail address at any time.

You are probably best advised to start telling people your new e-mail address in anticipation!

After you have run the installation disk that came from “NEWISP”, and once you know that the new connection is working:

Open Outlook Express and left click Tools then Accounts.

If the “NEWISP” disc has set up your “NEWISP” e-mail account properly you should find two accounts in the list - the old one and the new one.

It should be fairly easy to work out which is the old one and which is the new. If in doubt, the new one will most probably be marked “Default”.

Left click to highlight the NEW account and then left click on the Properties button.

Left click the Servers button and write down (but don’t change) the name of the new SMTP server from the Outgoing mail (SMTP) box.

Left click OK.

Left click to highlight the OLD account and then left click on the Properties button.

Left click the Servers button and type the name of the NEW SMTP server (the one that you wrote down) into the Outgoing mail (SMTP) box.

Don’t change the Incoming mail (POP3) server.

So your OLD e-mail account will be set to use the OLD e-mail server for incoming mail and the NEW e-mail server for outgoing mail. That should work fine in most cases

Left click OK.

Now, if everything has been done correctly, OE will download from your old email account every time you “Send and receive” and you should be able to send mail using either your new or your old address - always check the “From” box when writing mail and select the address that you want to send from.

Remember that a few “NEWISP”s may not let you send mail from your old ISP e-mail address through their server, so in that case every time you send mail make sure that you select the new "From" address.

Why do I keep getting Outlook Express error messages?

If you have a faulty e-mail in your Outbox - for example a message to an address that (accidentally) has a space in it, then OE will give you an error message like:

The message could not be sent because one of the recipients was rejected by the server. The rejected e-mail address was 'random person@yourisp.co.uk'. Subject 'test', Account: 'Yourname', Server: 'smtp.yourisp.co.uk', Protocol: SMTP, Server Response: '501 <random person@yourisp.co.uk>: "@" or "." expected after "random"', Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 501, Error Number: 0x800CCC79

But the e-mail will stay in your Outbox.

So the next time that you hit Send/Receive or start OE you will get the message again. And so it goes on.....

Until you open the Outbox folder, left click on the e-mail and then hit the Delete key.

Why doesn’t Outlook Express just delete the e-mail automatically after giving you the error message? Or delete it after 3 attempts?

How to Change the Compose Font Settings in Outlook Express or Windows Mail

Open Outlook Express or Windows Mail
Left click Tools, then Options..., then the Compose tab
In the first section, headed Compose Font, left click the Font Settings... button to the far right of Mail:
Select the Font, Font style and Size that you require
For completeness you can also change the settings for News: by selecting the other Font Settings... button
Left click OK in the Font box, then OK in the Options box

Send an e-mail to the whole Address Book

You can't automatically send an e-mail to everyone in your address book but you can get close to it by going through the following procedure:

Open Outlook Express, left click on the Addresses button, left click on the New button, Left click on New Group...
In the Group Name box type a name for your group and then left click on the Select Members button
Your list of contacts will appear in the left hand pane of the next box.
You need to left click each name and then left click the Select -> button
Repeat for each name in the list that you want to send your bulk emails to.
This is an opportunity to be selective - there must be some names in your list that you don't want to send to?
When you have finished, left click OK (twice) and then exit the address book.
Now left click on the Create Mail button and then on the To: at the left of the first entry box.
The Select Recipients box will open.
Scroll down to the Group name that you just set up and select it, left click on the To: -> button and then on OK.
Now give the email a subject and type your message.
When you send it it will be sent to everyone in the group.

Let's hope that your ISP doesn't think that it is Spam (because it is going to so many recipients).

Remember that people that you add to your address book in future will not automatically be added to the group that you set up - you have to add them individually

How to backup your Outlook Express e-mails

This procedure will make a backup copy of all your e-mails at the point in time that you do it. You will be able to use that backup to restore your e-mails in the event of catastrophe. You will NOT be able to read the e-mails in the backed up folders until/unless you restore them into Outlook Express - see the next tip.

Put a blank recordable CD into your CD writer drive (or connect a USB drive).

Cancel any messages that come up when the drive is initiated.

Open Outlook Express.

Left click Tools on the top menu bar, then left click Options..., then the Maintenance tab then the Store Folder button.

The Store Location box will open.

Under “Your personal message store is located in the following folder” there will be a (usually long) pathname. Left click and drag along the whole of the pathname to select it all (it may be longer than the box). With the mouse still over the pathname, hold down Ctrl on your keyboard and then press the “C” key.

Close Outlook Express and then left click on Start, then on Run... Now hold down Ctrl on your keyboard and press the “V” key, then left click OK.

An Explorer window will open showing all your e-mail folders.

Left click on any one of these folders to select it.

Now hold down Ctrl on your keyboard and press the “A” key. All the folders will now be highlighted. (Don’t try to only backup some of the folders, because it is not easy to subsequently restore anything other than the full set).

With your mouse arrow still over the folders, right click and then hover your mouse arrow over Send to and then left click your CD writer drive (or the appropriate USB drive).

After some time copying the files you will be notified that “files are waiting to be written to the CD”. Left click the balloon and an Explorer window will open.

Left click on “Write these files to CD” in the left hand column, give the CD a name, left click on Next and away you go.

How to restore Outlook Express e-mails from backup

Put the CD with your backups on (see above) into your CD drive (or connect your USB drive).

Open Outlook Express, left click on File then Import then Messages...

Under Select Program, left click on Microsoft Outlook Express 6 and then on the Next button.

Under Specify Location, left click to select Import mail from an OE6 store directory, then left click the OK button.

Under Location of Messages, left click the Browse button, then left click on your CD (or USB) drive, then on the OK button then on the Next button.

Left click All folders, then Next, and then Finish.

Your e-mails will be restored.

Archive Outlook Express E-mails

The two tips above are the “official” way of backing up and restoring OE e-mails. But this way is very limited - you have to do the whole set of your e-mail folders and there is no way of reading the backed up e-mails without restoring them back into Outlook Express.

Microsoft say that if you want to be able to backup selectively and read your backed up e-mails without having to restore the whole set then you should be using Outlook (and paying them for the privilege).

But there is another way...!

This is the trick: If you drag an e-mail from an Outlook Express window and drop it into a folder open in a Windows Explorer window, then the e-mail is copied into that folder and re-formated as a .eml file (and it will still include any attachments).

.eml files can be read individually by most e-mail programs (Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Incredimail - but not Outlook!). Just find the file in Windows Explorer and double left click on it.

Sensibly the datestamp of any .eml file created in this way is the datestamp of the original e-mail.

There are some minor problems associated with this method, none of which are insurmountable, but you need to be aware of them.

Dragging and dropping in this case only copies the e-mail - you cannot change it to move (copy and delete at the same time). So you have to delete the e-mail(s) from OE as a separate action.
The name of each .eml file is created only from the “subject” field of the original e-mail. The sender, account, etc. do not form part of the name, so it is harder to find particular e-mails. All that information is still contained within the .eml file however, so it is possible to search for a senders name by searching the content of the files.
You can copy e-mails in bulk by selecting the first one, moving down to the last one and holding down shift and ctrl before selecting it. Then left click on the highlighted group to drag them all to Windows Explorer.
If you drag and drop a group as above then any with the same name (subject) will have an incremental number added to the name:

IdleGossip.eml
IdleGossip (1).eml
IdleGossip (2).eml

If you subsequently drag and drop another e-mail with the same name to the same folder then Windows will assume that you want to overwrite the previously copied one. So it is best to first group all your “to be archived” e-mails into folders within OE representing how you want to archive them. Then create identical archive folders in the archive location and drag and drop the whole content of each e-mail folder to the appropriate archive folder. That way every .eml file will get a unique name and nothing will be written over.

So to summarise:

Create folders within Outlook Express to reflect how you want to archive your e-mails.
Move your e-mails into these folders as required.
Create an identical set of “real” folders in your chosen archive location.
Open OE as a small window and Windows Explorer as another small window and position them on your desktop so that you can drag and drop from OE to Explorer.
Open the appropriate folders in the OE and Explorer windows.
Drag and drop the whole folders content from OE to Explorer (lots of e-mails take lots of time!).
Delete the folder from OE.

You can now move, copy or delete these folders and files in the normal way. And you can read them just by double left clicking on them.

It is also possible to do the whole thing in reverse - drag .eml files into an Outlook Express folder from a Windows Explorer window and the e-mail will become a normal OE one.

Vista users will be pleased to know that you can do exactly the same trick with Windows Mail.

Just out of interest you can also do the same thing with Outlook, but instead of .eml the files will be .msg files. But this is largely irrelevant because Outlook has it’s own archiving facility built in and it can read it’s own archived files.

Outlook Express doesn’t send or receive

Symptom: When you open Outlook Express or click on Send/Recv you immediately get the message “The requested tasks were completed successfully”. BUT NOTHING HAS HAPPENED - nothing has been sent or received.

Cause: You probably have a corrupt Windows User Profile

Test: Try Outlook Express in another Users account on your PC (set one up if you don’t have one). If that works then your original account has become corrupt.

Solution: Setup a new User account and copy all your stuff from the old account to the new. Full details are here.


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