Top 10 Annoyances in Windows Live Mail  

Date: August 20, 2007
Time: at 11:52 pm
Posted in: in email, microsoft, software

For those who may not have read my previous blog posts, over the past 12 days I have been using Windows Live Mail exclusively for my desktop email client needs. I normally use Mozilla Thunderbird. So far, the experience has been pleasant, but it isn’t without its annoyances. I’ve already posted my Top 10 Annoyances in Mozilla Thudnerbird. Here is my top 10 for Live Mail:

  1. UI inconsistency - When I go into Options or open a dialog/properties box, I’m expecting it to have the same clean look the regular interface has. But for some reason it reminds me of Windows 95. And when I add a new contact, why does the color scheme suddenly change?
  2. For the love of God, don’t make me have to go into the message properties just to view the full headers. And when I get there, I don’t want to have to use the horizontal scrollbar in order to read it. Can I please just Right Click -> View Sorce?
  3. As a part of the Windows Live services, Microsoft also offers Windows Live Writer, which allows you to post content to Wordpress, Movable Type, Live Spaces, Blogger, etc, all in one desktop client. But in their Windows Live Mail, why does the “Blog” option only allow you to use Live Spaces? That’s hypocritical–change it.
  4. Why isn’t there a “Print” label next to the button? Even though it’s obvious, it’s inconsistent.
  5. The searching options, while simple, aren’t customizable enough. I can’t search just in subjects or just in the body.
  6. I really don’t get the point of the “Storage folders” section being present by default. If I want to store something other than in the standard drafts, I’ll create my own folder for that purpose.
  7. When I right click the title bar, the standard menu bar shows up. But when I click off of the secondary click dropdown, the menu bar disappears. Is this a bug, or is it a feature that’s not working properly? I’d prefer it not to show up at all…
  8. I doubt there’s legal issues involved, so why can’t I import email/settings from a Thunderbird profile? Here I am thinking about switching, and I wouldn’t even have the option to import.
  9. There’s a big difference between email security, and junk email. Just because an advertisement comes in, it doesn’t mean it’s a fraud or trying to send you a virus. Please give Junk Email it’s own option in the Tools menu.

In a few days, I’ll make my final decision as to whether I’ll be staying with Windows Live Mail or going back to Thunderbird. I’m still kind of torn between the two.

As always, if you have any suggestions or comments, please leave a comment, or Ask Me!

Update: It seems in posting this the code got screwed up and I lost one of my points. What’s odd is I can’t remember what it was, so sorry for there only being 9 … but there were originally 10, I promise.

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Comments

2 Responses to “Top 10 Annoyances in Windows Live Mail”

  1. The Email Client : Adam Reyher - August 22nd, 2007 @ 11:13 pm

    […] was so simple and straightforward, yet got the job done brilliantly. On the other hand, I did find a few annoyances as […]

  2. Barry Seymour - January 18th, 2008 @ 2:59 pm

    I find it annoying. I use Outlook Express which is small, fast, light and simple.

    One of my favorite OE features are the rules. I have a bunch of them set up and turned off; I run them periodically just to clean up my POP email inbox. All other accounts are GMail IMAP or Hotmail.

    When I installed WLM it imported all my OE settings, including rules, which was all good. But the first time it did a send/receive it downloaded ALL MESSAGES in ALL MY IMAP folders. Took a long time and really hogged the CPU. :-(

    When I go to apply my rules, the default folder is the Storage Folder, which is stupid, since the rules move items to folders within the Storage Folder. The end result is that everything in the Storage Folder is moved to the proper location IN THE STORAGE FOLDER, i.e. everything is moved to where it already is. Needless to say this takes a long time and a lot of CPU power and the end result is that everything end up exactly where it was before. DUH.

    When you manually run rules you must take care to specify the folder to run in first — and you have to do this every time as WLM doesn’t remember this setting. I have to specify my POP email inbox each time I do this.

    The only feature I found valuable was Quick Views, where a single folder purports to display all unread emails. Sadly this was erratic at best, slow and buggy at worst. The folders would often show a number next to the name — Unread Email (22) — yet no messages were in the folder.

    Cosmetically it looks better, But the fonts are larger and can’t be changed. OE used Tahoma 8 point, which to my mind was nice and compact. Here it’s a larger font with more white space. I had to do too much scrolling around to find and work with messages in my various accounts.

    It’s very pretty, but Windws Live Mail doesn’t deliver on the promises it’s glitzy UI offers. I’m moving back to Outlook Express.

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