Windows XP for Starters: The Missing Manual

Chapter 8. Outlook Express 6

• Setting Up Outlook Express

• Sending Email

• Reading Email

Email is a fast, cheap, convenient communication medium; these days, it’s almost embarrassing to admit that you don’t have an email address. To spare you that humiliation, Windows XP includes Outlook Express 6, a program that lets you receive and send email messages. (Incidentally, don’t confuse Outlook Express with Outlook, a far bigger and more complex corporate email program that’s sold as part of the Microsoft Office software suite.)

To use Outlook Express, you need several technical pieces of information: an email address, an email server address, and an Internet address for sending email. Your Internet service provider or your network administrator is supposed to provide all of these ingredients.

Tip

Outlook Express doesn’t work with online services like America Online or SBC/Yahoo. Instead, you’re supposed to check and send your email using the software you got when you signed up for these services.

Setting Up Outlook Express

This section assumes that you used the New Connection Wizard in the previous chapter (Section 7.2) to establish your Internet account, which means that your settings are probably already in place. If you didn’t, the Internet Connection Wizard appears the first time you use Outlook Express to help you plug in the necessary Internet addresses and codes that tell the program where to find your email.

If you want to add a second email account for someone else who uses your ...