I hate Outlook email
Tim
Southwest PA Icrontian
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.
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.
0
Comments
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.
Not to mention you don't have to tell it to look for email, you can schedule automatic checks.
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
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.
There is so much more to do with the other big names in email management.
Also Tim if you feel like bitching step up and get gmail - so much better then hotmail in ever conceivable measure.
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.