What is the best e-mail program to use of the following.

[Wilhelmet]

I am a long time user of MS operating systems and Microsoft Office going back to Windows 98 through Vista. I started out using Outlook Express a fair program, but notice some storage problems of the folders and contents. For some reason when the opportunity to switch to Microsoft Office Outlook I did not as there seem to be address storage conflict. It may have been my perception and lack of experience at the time.
When I moved up the Vista operation system I had to move to Windows Mail and I believe some loss of Archived e-mail files then comes comes along Windows Live Mail and a new migration of files and still some dissatisfaction of the results, at first the program seems an improvement over Windows Mail then the updates seem to have negated some of the earlier features such as under Options-General-Send/Receive Messages "Not check" is Check for new messages every X minutes well it must as I am dial-up with a 24/7 line for the computer and as a result messages will be received by-passing MailWasher Pro. No harm so far has happen but there are reasons for having the e-mail program on, such as Send out several large files that can take 1 to 2 hours to get to my ISP. So I set up the task and walk away to do other personal business while the computer churns away. Shortly I will get Microsoft Office 2010 and the new Microsoft Office Outlook that come with it. Maybe it is time to really make the switch to it and bite the bullet in migrating all assocated files. I know my files for e-mail programs are over 2 GB. I would appreciate and thought on the subject.

[stan_qaz]

I don't know of any way to migrate your existing e-mail files to another program, Microsoft makes an effort to make that difficult so you are locked into their programs.

Personally I like Mozilla Thunderbird for my e-mail, it does a good job of both collecting messages and sending them, there are also a lot of extensions available to do additional functions that you may find handy.

[rusticdog]

I think you'll find Outlook would be quite good for importing the messages from another client, it's getting them out if you decide to change that can be a hassle

ThunderBird would be worth a look, Outlook 2010 I can't speak on though I'm not hearing great things. I personally would prefer Outlook 2007 and it's what I've stuck with at the office. At home it's ThunderBird, but I'm constantly having headaches with it, that said, my issues are largely because ThunderBird has no respect for IMAP users, so I'm sure regular POP users would be much better off.

Windows Live Mail is basically Outlook Express, just much uglier, so all the basic options are there. To get to the options to disable automatic checking press ALT + M and select Options, under both the General tab and Send tab you can set it not to send emails immediately, and not to check every xx minutes and not to check on startup.
However there doesn't appear to be a Send All option, which I'm sure Outlook Express had, so you must use the Synch button to send your email, which would also download all waiting emails

[Wilhelmet]

A follow up I have third party programs that when I use them want their links to e-mail programs to be Outlook, i.e. Nuance PaperPort 12 a PaperPort Document Management Software and Scanning Solutions
PaperPort Professional 12 http://www.nuance.com/imaging/products/paperport.asp I also purchased another third party program that will back up e-mail file of the MS family of e-mail programs.
Express Assist 10 http://ajsystems.com/expressassist/eafeatures.html I yet to install this version program 10, but in the pass used earlier versions with Outlook Express and it worked out standing.I had a desktop and leptop so if I went on the road for two week I would copy all the date from the desktop to the laptop and would then do all may e-mail work on the road then when getting home copy every thing back to the desktop worked great. I guess my real question which would be a better e-mail program to use Windows Live Mail or Microsoft Office Outlook.

[rusticdog]

Express Assistant doesn't look to have any functionality with Outlook, that said Outlook has all the data for each account in one file so it's fairly easy to move across.

As an email program I'd prefer Outlook over Windows Live Mail, though I am biased, when I first tried Windows Mail then looked at Windows Live Mail ...