Setting Up Windows Live Mail

(This program works with Windows Vista & Windows 7 only)

Download the program—it’s part of Windows Live Essentials (You can find a link on my Internet SIG blog or simply do a search for it.) After downloading, (depending on your browser) you will immediately prompted to install/setup the program. If not, look in your Downloads folder for an icon with the Windows logo that says wlsetup and click it to install from there.

Look for an icon that looks like the one below. If it’s not on your taskbar or desktop after installation, click on the “start” icon at the very bottom left on your screen to bring up the list of installed programs. Holding down your right mouse button, drag the icon to your taskbar and select “pin to taskbar.”

Then, use the icon as shown above to open the program.

On the menu bar, click Tools. Move your mouse down & choose Accounts on the drop-down menu.

Click Add.

In the next dialog box choose e-mail account. Click Next. (You’ll find a link beneath about finding help to get the required info, which you may not even need—especially if adding a hotmail or gmail account!)

Next dialog box asks for your e-mail address, password, there’s a box to check to remember your password, & your name. Do NOT check the box to configure manually if you’re adding a Hotmail or Gmail account. You may not even need to check this box when adding an e-mail from your ISP.

If adding a Hotmail account there’s nothing below this. (There’s even a link to get an account.) You’re told that you’ve provided the needed info.

If adding a gmail account, fill in the info noted above. When you click Next, there will be a link directing you to Gmail for further instructions.

If adding an e-mail account from your Internet Service Provider, after entering the info noted above, you will need to go to your ISP’s website and click the Help link and look for e-mail. There you should find instructions that walk you through what you need to do. (The instructions may say they’re for Outlook Express, which is the predecessor of Windows Live Mail—but they should work.) You can toggle back and forth to check the info needed in each dialog box as you get to it.

An AOL mail account may be added, as well. This wasn’t the case years ago when I had AOL, and I have no info on it (check the AOL website.) If you have a Yahoo premium account, it can be added.

Regardless of which type of account you are adding, everything is much more automated now and many settings are detected—which means there’s less work for you to do than there used to be.

--Ann Finley, August 2010