Thanks rstuart, you saved me the trouble.

>>But whether you choose, don't continue to whinge about being caught up in some global Corportatocracy conspiracy<<

It always amazes me that people complain interminably about Microsoft's hegemony and consequent pricing practices (how many times have Windows users paid for the same basic product?) without bothering to research alternatives.

After many years of trepidation (I am entirely non-technical) I finally made the switch to Ubuntu a couple of years ago. As a result I've already saved many hundreds of dollars personally, and many thousands for the business.

Firefox for the browser, Thunderbird for mail.

Plus Sun VirtualBox for those (fortunately very few) annoying "Windows Only" applications such as MYOB. Including those times I need Internet Explorer to talk to the Australian Tax Office... how dare they tell me what I should run on my computer! With XP SP1 safely quarantined inside VirtualBox, inside Linux, I don't need to worry about Vista, Windows 7 or whatever new usage tax Microsoft wants to impose.

Belly, I've switched to Windows 7, as my old girl was regularly
crashing, things get fairly dusty out on a farm. So as part of
buying a new computer, it seemed to make sense to upgrade the
OS as well.

I think that rstuart has it about right, MS can see advertising
Dollars with every email sent, by getting rid of Outlook Express
and trying to force people through their new system, but I think they
are making a mistake. Ignoring what consumers want is a fatal
flaw in business, IMHO anyhow.

I would have happily paid them something for Outlook Express.
That Evolution programme suggested by rstuart, looks very similar,
so I might try it. However I'm not sure how we'll go if there are
conflicts with Windows that appear and what happens then.

In fact I don't have a problem in paying for software, but I have
a problem with them ignoring what I want and telling me what I now
should do. Arrogance has cost MS alot of money in the past and
will clearly continue to do so, as we can see by peoples reactions.

It was Apple's arrogance, which got Bill Gates going in the first
place, when he took off, with Windows 3 and Office 94. MS seem
to have forgotten that lesson.

Anyhow, thanks for all the suggestions, I might try a number of
them.

@ Arjay

I'm on your side you dill, I think you misinterpreted my post?

I was simply wondering why you would pay for software from a company that represents what you're against?

This is one of the reasons I switched to linux years ago. It gives me freedom and hurts their bottom line. Amongst other things :)

http://www.softpedia.com/progViewOpinions/Evolution-for-Windows-43304,.html

rstuart, I tried to download that Evolution, but no luck. So
I did a bit of a google search and found these posts.

It sounds great in theory, but not much good in day to day use,
for those like me, who don't want to fiddle with software, but
just want it to do its job.

There is no mention of Windows 7 either.

Sounds to me like if somebody comes up with a similar programme
that actually works and flogs it for 20-50 bucks, they could
sell millions!

There are a huge number of happy Outlook Express users out there,
who are going to be majorly pissed off by this MS decision.

Outlook is nowhere near as convenient to use, as Outlook Express.

Sorry about that Yabby. I use Evolution myself - but under Linux, not Windows. I made the mistake assuming the port to windows was kosher.

By way of trying to make up for that little mistake, here are a couple of others you could look at:

http://www.pmail.com/
http://www.eudora.com/

Mind you, that is about it. It exhausts my repertoire of free Windows Clients.

Thanks for trying rstuart. I do appreciate it.

I've been reading quite a few of the reviews etc online and it
seems that with programmes like Thunderbird, they work fine with
Firefox, but less so with Windows. Some have not yet been updated
to handle Windows 7 either.

I even had a look to see if MS flog Outlook on its own, but nope,
they want you to buy their whole 600$ Office package. Stuff them,
I already have Office 2000, I don't need an update.

I'm not sure how many copies of Windows have been sold, but it would
be huge, I presume hundreds of millions. Many of these will be
wanting a working, easy email solution, similar to Outlook Express.

Even at 20$ a pop, thats 20 million for a million copies sold, so
enough $ to eventually create a market based solution, when smart
software developers twig at the opportunity created here. Sadly
it won't happen overnight, but as more people like myself
highlight the problem, somebody will make alot of money, giving
us consumers the solution that we want.