I hate Outlook email

[Tim]

I do work on people's computers, 99% home computers, and have gotten to the point where I dread hearing them say they use Outlook for email.

I've been using Hotmail for 10 years, and my only complaint is that to change accounts to check another of my Hotmail accounts, I have to close out IE6 and re-enter hotmail.com .

But Outlook.... oh man.

Most home users have it set as POP3, so I can't just reformat a hard drive without saving their emails and address book first. And few people ever think to back up their emails or addresses until they are having serious computer problems.

And the whole Send/Receive thing. You have to TELL IT to look for new emails, which I've never had to do in Hotmail.

And a lot of people get so used to Outlook (somehow), and just logging in to check their emails that they forget their user name and password, then there's a mad scramble of them throwing open drawers and going through papers to find where they wrote down their email address and password 5 years ago.

And unless they wrote down the config settings (VERY RARE), once I bring a freshly reloaded PC back to them we have to call their ISP to get their incoming/outgoing addresses and server type reset.

In short, I hate Outlook and never want to see it again.

This may be all different for businesses, but I deal with home users.

[mas0n]

I don't like Outlook much either after working on it for years, but some pointers:

1) Even if the PST file is never exported you can always find the one Outlook is/was using under C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook ... This contains all mail, calendar, addresses, and full Unicode PST files include Rules.

2) Tools > Options > Mail Setup > Send\Receive ... Then check the box next to "Schedule an automatic Send\Receive every X minutes" change "X" to suit your preference.

3) If you have access to the old PC and it boots you can use AstLog to get their mail password out of their settings.

1 refers to Outlook; Outlook Express is different but if you know where the store files and WAB files are kept, you still never actually have to export and 2 & 3 still apply.

[Snarkasm]

So let me get this right: you hate a piece of software because of its users?

Not to mention you don't have to tell it to look for email, you can schedule automatic checks.

[AlphaTrinity]

This may be all different for businesses, but I deal with home users.

No it's not different at all. Outlook problems spawn up all of the time. Randomly somebody's outlook won't grab the user's pst so I have to point it to the right location; more often than it should be a user won't be able to send an email with an attachment even though everybody else can send that attachment and the user has send hundreds (seriously) of the same type of attachment.

The only difference I have is that I have a top-notched backup scheme and of course I know everybody's password and what the email server address is.
Thank goodness we're getting Exchange in a few weeks /sarcasm

[mas0n]

Randomly somebody's outlook won't grab the user's pst

The only time I've ever seen what you are referring to is when the PST is not on a local drive or there is an underlying problem unrelated to Outlook.

I manage >30 small networks that use Outlook 2003 as their mail client; half of those run Exchange. I can honestly say that 99/100 Outlook problems are human error.

[PurplezArctic]

I've never took the time to set up outlook for the sole reason that email doesn't have to be clunky and at times difficult. I want to log in, check new messages, and scidaddle out of there. When there are web-email clients like gmail, yahoo.... oh yeah- and hotmail, there doesn't seem to be any outstanding reason to use your isp's email address.

There is so much more to do with the other big names in email management.

[mas0n]

For me personally, all my accounts hit gmail. From there I do the vast majority of my messaging and calendaring on a Blackberry.

[kryyst]

The issue Tim is bitching about isn't alone to outlook. You have the same problem with any local email program be it outlook, outlook express, thunderbird, eudora, evolution, kmail etc.... His issues have nothing to do with outlook at all.

Also Tim if you feel like bitching step up and get gmail - so much better then hotmail in ever conceivable measure.

[Tim]

Someone said that most Outlook problems are human error. I can certainly believe that. 90%+ of the people I deal with know just enough to get what they want to work, and nothing else. They get on the web, they read their email, and that's all they know.

This week alone, I've talked to 2 people who thought that just because Verizon gave them a spam blocker with their internet account that they didn't need anything else for viruses / spyware.:rolleyes: