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[Solved] Best replacement for Outlook Express in Win 7 (64bit)?

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Best answer from sminlal.

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skarydrunkguy   11-06-2009 at 03:03:45 AM

Windows Live Mail absolutely blows. I don't want or need to spend $200+ for full Outlook. I hear Thunderbird is a pita and Eudora doesn't like Win7 64bit.

What is everyone using for email now?!

Anyone have success adding an old version of Outlook Express from XP to 7? Googling takes me to all worthless sites talking about beta releases from 6+ months ago (ps... wtf google?!?)

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Best answer from sminlal
I've used Outlook Express on my home system for many years and it worked just fine for me. The lack of it in Windows 7 annoyed me because it meant I had to spend time researching and testing alternatives.

I settled on Thunderbird. I'm currently running 2.0.0.23 on 64-bit Win7 RC Build 7100. It works perfectly well for me - I have multiple e-mail accounts which I'm able to access through one Thunderbird profile. Thunderbird gives you a choice as to whether you want to receive mail from each account into separate inboxes or into a common inbox (I use the latter). It's able to do everything that I did under Outlook Express and the learning curve was very minor.

The most difficult part was migrating my mailboxes full of existing e-mails (some going back over a decade), and that's because many of mine are hierarchically organized. The hierarchy was not preserved and so I had to manually move folders around in order to reproduce the same organization I had in OE. Once that was done, though, it was smooth sailing.
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Bronze Win 7 badge TheViper   11-06-2009 at 03:20:09 AM

Thunderbird is actually very good.

Click Advanced on your Google search and you can narrow down choices to more recent dates.


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skarydrunkguy   11-06-2009 at 03:21:55 AM

I'll give Thunderbird a try, but I have yet to see a site that rates it better than 3 stars out of 5 with some pretty bad comments.

Thanks for the google tip, they used to default to more recent stuff.

Any other opinions?


Message edited by skarydrunkguy on 11-06-2009 at 03:22:09 AM
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skarydrunkguy   11-06-2009 at 03:29:27 AM

I frankly don't trust CNET. The user review are mixed, and thats for version 2.x.x.x. I don't see any relating to Windows 7 64 bit, which is supposedly version 3.x.x.x and its not out of beta yet. I cannot use alpha/beta/rc software under any circumstances.

Reply to skarydrunkguy
Bronze Win 7 badge TheViper   11-06-2009 at 03:40:01 AM

You can run 2.0.0.23 in 64 bit Win 7...I am.

You can run most any 32 bit software in a 64 bit OS.

Reply to TheViper
fatsauce   11-07-2009 at 07:51:37 AM

Honestly who uses Outlook Express...HONESTLY???

Message quoted 1 times
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skarydrunkguy   11-07-2009 at 05:45:16 PM

fatsauce wrote :

Honestly who uses Outlook Express...HONESTLY???



Lots and lots of people do. Its great for business people. I'm not talking about college kids or tech junkies, just regular people who don't want to deal with the hassle of finding, tweaking, setting up, incompatibilities, tech support, learning something new, etc. Lots and lots of people use it.

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Bronze Win 7 badge TheViper   11-07-2009 at 06:59:51 PM

No tweaking required for Thunderbird either. Unless you want to and then you have the option for it. Plus add ons just like FF does (though they've been pretty limited until Thunderbird 3).

Why do you assume Thunderbird requires any more tech knowledge than Outlook?

Message quoted 1 times
Reply to TheViper
skarydrunkguy   11-07-2009 at 07:05:15 PM

TheViper wrote :

No tweaking required for Thunderbird either. Unless you want to and then you have the option for it. Plus add ons just like FF does (though they've been pretty limited until Thunderbird 3).

Why do you assume Thunderbird requires any more tech knowledge than Outlook?



If you were to go into any office and pick any computer where the user has been using OE and install Thunderbird. I can guarantee you that there would be many calls to tech support. Not because it is any more difficult. Because it is different. The vast majority of people who use computers have Microsoft-centric computer knowledge, not general computer knowledge. If you change one simple menu heading from Tools to Options, you will baffle alot of people. I deal with it every day.

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Bronze Win 7 badge TheViper   11-07-2009 at 07:09:43 PM

Yeah, I understand that but the question is about an Outlook replacement, not an Outlook clone.

Message quoted 1 times
Reply to TheViper
skarydrunkguy   11-07-2009 at 08:46:07 PM

TheViper wrote :

Yeah, I understand that but the question is about an Outlook replacement, not an Outlook clone.



Fair enough. I actually would rather have a way to get actual OE into win7. Thats the ideal solution, but I don't think its possible, hence, replacement that is as close to clone as possible. :)

Reply to skarydrunkguy
Bronze Win 7 badge TheViper   11-07-2009 at 09:08:24 PM

Aside from the paid version of Outlook itself, I don't know anything that replicates Outlook as it si.

 

Thunderbird 3 is supposed to incorporate a lot of Outlook like features with calendars, scheduling plus new stuff like tabbed emails, easier account set up, activity manger (tracks deletions, moves, etc...), smart folders (multiple accounts aggregate to one folder), and better Windows integration.

 

It's a tough spot to be in. You have to bite one bullet or the other. Either pay for Outlook for everyone or have everyone learn a new e-mail client.


Message edited by TheViper on 11-07-2009 at 09:09:50 PM
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pat   11-07-2009 at 09:14:06 PM

Foxmail. simple, free and portable.

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Bronze Win 7 badge sminlal   11-07-2009 at 10:09:54 PM
Best answer

I've used Outlook Express on my home system for many years and it worked just fine for me. The lack of it in Windows 7 annoyed me because it meant I had to spend time researching and testing alternatives.

I settled on Thunderbird. I'm currently running 2.0.0.23 on 64-bit Win7 RC Build 7100. It works perfectly well for me - I have multiple e-mail accounts which I'm able to access through one Thunderbird profile. Thunderbird gives you a choice as to whether you want to receive mail from each account into separate inboxes or into a common inbox (I use the latter). It's able to do everything that I did under Outlook Express and the learning curve was very minor.

The most difficult part was migrating my mailboxes full of existing e-mails (some going back over a decade), and that's because many of mine are hierarchically organized. The hierarchy was not preserved and so I had to manually move folders around in order to reproduce the same organization I had in OE. Once that was done, though, it was smooth sailing.

Reply to sminlal
core i7 ownage   11-07-2009 at 10:31:38 PM

Hotmail?

Message quoted 1 times
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Click my picture for full specs.

Reply to core i7 ownage
Bronze Win 7 badge Zoron   11-09-2009 at 07:04:03 PM

Windows Live Mail is the closest thing you're going to get that:

1) Is free.
2) Looks similar to Outlook Express.

It's pretty much the same program with a little more flash. The one thing I didn't care for with OE is that it chokes on large mailbox files... I had one person that had an Inbox file exceeding 1GB... once I switched her to Thunderbird (no Windows Live Mail at the time), her mail worked fine. I'm not sure if the Windows Mail client in Vista is any better, because I really haven't used it much. I started using Windows Live Mail as soon as it was available and I use Outlook at work.

------------------------------ Desktop: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit; Intel Q6600 CPU; E-VGA 780i SLI motherboard; E-VGA E-GeForce 8800GT; OCZ Vista 4GB dual-channel kit; Ultra X2 750W power supply; 2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB in RAID 0. Laptop: Acer Aspire 8730-6314;
 Reply to Zoron
blueshirt   11-14-2009 at 06:58:33 PM

I did a a clean install of Win7 Pro 64bit. I then installed Thunderbird on it. I wanted to move my XP Outlook Express message system over to Thunderbird on Win7. I want to move the accounts, contact list and all existing message over. When I tell Thunderbird that I want to import into the system, it offers a blank screen. How do I tell it OE? What files do I copy over to the new PC so that Thunderbird sees the OE files and imports all the account, contacts and messages? I installed Thunderbird on my XP machine and it allows me to import everything so I assume that it is looks for the OE files and finds them. I had thought that I would just import into Thunderbird and then export the system and copy that on the Win7 system. However, I don't see an "export" option of any kind in Thunderbird. How did you move the system over to Win7?

Reply to blueshirt
Bronze Win 7 badge sminlal   11-14-2009 at 07:24:15 PM

If you've got Thunderbird installed on the same system as Outlook Express, you should be able to import using the instructions on this page: http://support.real-time.com/tbird/oe_import.html

In my case, I installed Thunderbird on my Win7 system, so I needed a different way to get the files from Outlook Express on my old XP system. I referred to this page: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Import_from_Outlook_Express, and used DbxConv and the ImportExportTools extension.

If you want to move stuff from Thunderbird on one system to Thunderbird on another system, MozBackup is probably the easiest way: http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/

Reply to sminlal
blueshirt   11-14-2009 at 09:07:38 PM

Sorry, I didn't mean to confuse you. I have exactly the same situation as you. New Win7 system with Thunderbird and my XP OE mail on my old machine.

I did install Thunderbird on my XP system, import OE into it. I was thinking that I could just Export the whole system to from XP Thunderbird into Win7 Thunderbird. I didn't see how this would work because I didn't see an Export option in Thunderbird, only an import option.

However, I think you provided the links I need to solve the problem either way. I thought that I did a good Google search and Mozilla site search. I guess I just didn't put it all together!

Thanks again.

Reply to blueshirt
Bronze Win 7 badge sminlal   11-14-2009 at 10:16:32 PM

If you've got everything you want in the Thunderbird profile on your XP system, then MozBackup will probably be the easiest way to move it over to your Win7 system. Just run in on the XP system to back everything up, copy the backup to your Win7 system, then run in on the Win7 system to restore it.

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