Windows 7: The Missing Manual

Chapter 12. Windows Live Mail

Email is a fast, cheap, convenient communication medium; these days, it’s almost embarrassing to admit you don’t have an email address. To spare you that humiliation, Microsoft offer you Windows Live Mail. It’s a renamed, revamped version of the program that, through the years, has been called Windows Mail and Windows Live Desktop Mail. It lets you receive and send email and read newsgroups (Internet bulletin boards), and it’s also the only calendar program you get in Windows 7.

GEM IN THE ROUGH: The “Windows Live” in Windows Live Mail

If you downloaded Windows Live Essentials, then you probably have a free Windows Live account (a Windows Live ID, in other words). But in Mail’s case, “Windows Live” isn’t just a name; the program really does hook into Microsoft’s vast Windows Live suite of services.

For example, if you’re signed into Windows Live when you’re using Mail, you can pull off some nifty stunts:

You can send huge photo files as attachments—files that would ordinarily be too big for email. But although your friends will receive only thumbnail-sized images, the email they get contains “Play slideshow” and “Download picture” links that take them to the full-size versions on the Windows Live Web site. (The thumbnail link remains live for 30 days.)

When you click Contacts (lower-left corner of Mail), you see your email address book—but if any of your Windows Messenger chat partners are online, special icons let you know. Sometimes a quick live chat is ...