If you enjoy Usent newsgroups then the latest versions of Windows Live Mail (WLM) are fairly much useless. The most troubling issue with WLM is that it doesn’t quote the text of the people you are replying to. In a word, it’s horrible. kadaitcha.cx had to spend time getting used to Mozilla Thunderbird, which didn’t have the desirable features of the old Outlook Express or the older WLM. Now though there is a simple solution.
Download and install Windows Live Mail for Windows XP. It’s the latest version of WLM that was forked from the original Outlook Express so it hasn’t been completely borked by the Microsoft Borg. While it’s as rough as guts (e.g. no way to turn off annoying nags when it can’t find a newsgroup), it does work.
Note that the link is to the web installer. If you install from the link above you will get the latest version of WLM for XP. However there is no guarantee that Microsoft will continue to make it avalailable. If you want to make sure you can still get the older WLM then download the complete installer here and keep it in a safe place.
The full installer points to revision 14.0.8089. The web installer is slightly newer.
The only problem with this solution is that if you like to use Writer for creating and managing your blog entries then you can’t install the latest version of Writer alongside the older version of WLM. This is a shame because the earlier Writer was mostly experimental and the later version is much smoother. So, it comes down to a choice of a better Usenet newsgroup experience or a better blog-writing experience. Having no life, the admin at kadaitcha.cx chooses to have a better Usenet newsgroup experience.
If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Outlook Express user and really must have the original OE, you can always download Microsoft’s free Virtual PC or Oracle’s free VirtualBox and run Windows XP in a virtual machine.
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