Saturday, November 27, 2010

Outlook Express on Windows 7? – Windows Live Mail – Everything in one Place

There is no Outlook Express program on Windows 7. Outlook Express on Windows 7 has been superseded with Windows Live mail. Even users also had an option in Windows Live Mail which could be downloaded and installed for free on both Vista and XP computer. Windows Live Mail is much more than an email and news client because it can also work as a blogging tool and an RSS reader. It is free mail client that is a successor of Windows Mail and Outlook Express.

Those who are looking for Outlook Express on Windows 7, do not wait. Sorry, the program is long dead. It has been replaced by Windows Mail in Vista and then later by Windows Live Mail. You may please note that Outlook Express development and supported has been stopped by Microsoft. If you are looking for an Outlook Express alternative, it is recommend that Windows Live Mail Mozilla's Thunderbird is an excellent Outlook Express substitute if you want to break out of Microsoft's shackles. IncrediMail and Yahoo's free email program, Zimbra desktop, will also work on Windows 7 OS.

The speciality of Windows Live Mail is you can get all your mail accounts in one program. Hotmail, gmail, yahoo and many more! Windows Live Mail has calendar as well. Mail would combine in the ease of use of Outlook Express, even with the speed of Windows Live.

There are lots of features available with Windows Live Mail. It could be offline accessible. Of course, the mail security still remains! It has event reminders as well. Windows Live Mail is sync with web calendar. You can easily share your calendar as well.

Outlook Express have a huge and loyal following because it was very easy to use with a clean simple interface, even beginners could set up email accounts and start sending and receiving emails at ease. Though, Windows Live Mail has been built on the foundations of Outlook Express. The interface and many added features put it in a different league. Let us not forget Windows Mail is the default free email client on Vista.

Windows Live Mail has a nice clean interface that we can change as per our requirements. We can setup multiple email accounts including Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! Windows Live Mail has additional features which includes Photo e-mail, through which you can send high resolution photographs over email as thumbnails which means the recipient's inbox will not be congested with large attachments. We can view also the full sized photo displayed only when requested and that too from a private web location. Windows Live Mail has enhanced security with additional automated filtering of junk email including spam and phishing messages. Overall Windows Live Mail will prove to be a winner by a very large margin.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

How to Change Display Name (Screen or Nick Name) in Windows Live Messenger 2011

Windows Live Messenger had been one of the most popular messengers over the years. Now the latest version of Windows Live Messenger 2011 is available but will work only on 32- and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 with the platform update for windows vista, or Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack 2 and the Platform Update for Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2.

There was a very nice option in previous versions of Windows Live Messenger to set a Display Name whcih is nothing just a Nick Name and some times called Screen Name. This could be a seperate one from the original name. Every one who can see you on Live Messenger could see you with that name.

Unfortunately this option to change the display name is removed in this version Windows Live Messenger 2011. This version displays the full name that is it displays first name and second name set in your Windows Live Account to the friends and other contacts who can see you on Live Messenger.

How to change this display name or screen name in Windows Live Messenger 2011?

To change the display name you need to configure the first name and last name to you nick name in your Windows Live Account. To do so follow the steps below.

Check if you are logged in to your Windows Live Messenger 2011 otherwise login with your Windows Live ID and password.

Now you can see a small dropdown arrow beside your user name at the top of the live messenger window, when clicked on that will show a dropdown menu.

Choose Edit You Name from the menu.

Now you can see a new internet browser window opened taking you to your Windows Live Account profile page.

Set both your first name and last name to look like your nick name or how you would like your display name to be. for ex: if you want your display name to be johnmac set first name to be john and last name to be mac.

Save the settings now and logout from Live Messenger and Login again. Now you can see the display name changed as you wanted to be. This is how you can change the dispaly name or screen name in Windows Live Messenger 2011.