Outlook 97 to replace Outlook Express

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jon Cartmel
  • Start date Start date
J

Jon Cartmel

First of all, apologies if this is not the correct group. This is my first
attempt at using public newsgroups, so hopefully it's the right one, and
hopefully my etiquette is OK!

Anyway, my problem is I currently use Outlook Express for email, but I want
to switch to using Outlook 97 (which I have as part of Office 97) as I use
the calendar, and running one app seems a lot better than running 2.
However, I have looked at Help (as often, it isn't), and at various magazine
articles on email, but I cannot work out how to do what ought to be a very
simple task. I have also tried 'playing around' but all I get when I try to
send a message from Outlook is something about not finding a transport. If
it matters, I am on NTL cable broadband, and my OS is XP SP2.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated. Thanks

JC
 
OK, here's a quick step-by-step guide for setting up Internet mail in OL97,
it may help in your situation:
* go to the Control Panel > Mail applet
* make sure that the profile that's showing (which typically is the
contents of your default profile) has the following services in it:
- Personal Folders (this defines the location that mail/items can be stored
in)
- Personal Address Book (an address book provider - not essential for
Outlook but good to have around anyway)
- Outlook Address Book (another address book provider - this one takes the
electronic addresses from Contacts and turns them into an address book)
- Internet Mail (a mail transport - this is the one that moves mail from
your ISPs POP3 server to your Personal folders and from your Personal
Folders to your ISPs SMTP server [the whole loop for Internet e=mail])

The only service that might have some confusing parameters to set in it
would be the Internet Mail service. Before setting it up make sure you've
got the following info handy (complete list - I'm sure you know some of
these but I'm gonna list them anyway)

(If you've got two tabs in the Internet Mail service properties - Original
Internet Mail service):

[On General Tab]
- Your name
- Your E-mail address
- Your ISP's POP3 server name
- Your account name on that server
- Your POP3 account password
- Your ISP's SMTP server name (if you click the Advanced Options button
you'll see this field)

[On Connection tab]
- How you want to connect to your ISP's server
- If you want scheduled collection of mail (click Schedule button for this)

(If you've got four tabs in the Internet E-mail service properties -
Internet Mail Enhancement Patch service):

[On General Tab]
- A 'friendly' name to distinguish this service from other Internet E-mail
services in the same profile
- Your name
- Your company (if applicable)
- Your E-mail address
- A reply address (if you want replies from mail sent from this service to
go to another address)

[On Servers tab]
- Your ISP's SMTP server name (Outgoing mail)
- Your ISP's POP3 server name (Incoming mail)
- Your POP3 account name & password (unless you've got an MSN or Compuserve
POP3 mailbox in which case you check the Logon using Secure Password
Authentication button)

[On Connection tab]
- How you want to connect to the servers
- Do you want to disconnect after sending & receiving mail from this service

[On Advanced tab]
I'd leave most of these alone with the possible exception of the "Leave Mail
on Server" option (if you want to leave mail in your POP3 mailbox for
collection from another computer). The rest of the options normally aren't
used unless your ISP has an odd setup or a slow server.
 
Word of warning--Outlook 97 was extremely buggy. You'd be better off using
Outlook Express until you can upgrade to Outlook 2003.
 
Jon Cartmel said:
Anyway, my problem is I currently use Outlook Express for email, but
I want to switch to using Outlook 97 (which I have as part of Office
97) as I use the calendar, and running one app seems a lot better
than running 2.
Click to expand...

Vince does a great job of setting it up, but you still may not be able to
use OL 97 for email because may ISPs (and I think NTL is one of them)
require authentication to the outgoing server in order to send mail.
Outlook 97 doesn't have that ability so it cannot be used with ISPs that
require that outgoing authentication.
 
Many thanks for your replies. Following on from Brian's response re ISPs, I
think my first port of call is to check with NTL. Re Mary's comment, I used
97 at work in a large corporation for many years without any noticable
problem (although we were on Win NT, so maybe that was a factor? On the
other hand, maybe I shoud uograde). Anyway, I've printed Vince's very
comprehensive instructions out for use, dependent on NTL's response.

Thanks again. I'll post what happens.

JC
 
Jon Cartmel said:
Re Mary's
comment, I used 97 at work in a large corporation for many years
without any noticable problem
Click to expand...

Probably because either you were using an Exchange server or it was back in
the day that ISPs didn't require outgoing authentication.
 
It was only recently, but I guess we were using an exchange server. As far
as my current problem is concerned, I have managed to get Outlook to send
some mail, but it still all comes back to Outlook Express. My son is going
to look at the problem tonight to see if he can resolve it.

JC
 
Jon Cartmel said:
It was only recently, but I guess we were using an exchange server.
As far as my current problem is concerned, I have managed to get
Outlook to send some mail, but it still all comes back to Outlook
Express. My son is going to look at the problem tonight to see if he
can resolve it.
Click to expand...

There's nothing to resolve. Stop running Outlook Express and it won't fetch
the mail from the server before Outlook gets a chance. Alternatively,
remove the account from OE that's pointing at the same server you want
Outlook to access.
 
Well, without doing anything, things seem to have resolved themselves - by
the end of Saturday, all mail was coming through to Outlook, so I'm happy -
well, apart from a couple of things!

I like to have the folder list and Outlook bar displayed, and it's very easy
to change the view so that they appear, but how can I keep them there so
that I don't have to go into view (twice) every time I start Outlook up.
I've tried help (it didn't!), and nowhere can I see a 'save settings on
exit' or similar tab. I know you can do it because I used to at work. Help
please!

Second problem. I had no trouble transferring my Outlook Express address
book to Contacts and my personal address book in Oulook, but there doesn't
seem to be a nickname facility (I generally use the first two letters of
first and last name - e.g. frbl for Fred Bloggs). The Outlook Address Book
appears to have this facility (I'm pretty certain I used nicknames at work
in Outlook 97), but I cannot work out how to import my Outlook Express
address book into the Outlook Address book. Again, help please!

Thanks in advance.

JC
 
Jon Cartmel said:
Second problem. I had no trouble transferring my Outlook Express
address book to Contacts and my personal address book in Oulook, but
there doesn't seem to be a nickname facility (I generally use the
first two letters of first and last name - e.g. frbl for Fred
Bloggs). The Outlook Address Book appears to have this facility (I'm
pretty certain I used nicknames at work in Outlook 97), but I cannot
work out how to import my Outlook Express address book into the
Outlook Address book. Again, help please!
Click to expand...

You shouldn't be usning a Personal Address Book. If you have your Contacts
in your Contacts folder, then that should be sufficient. While I don't have
access to OL 97 right now, you should be able to right-click Contacts and on
the Outlook Address Book tab, check "Show this folder as an E-mail Address
Book".

I don't believe Outlook has Outlook Express-style nicknames.
 
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