What is Outlook Express?

Outlook Express is a discontinued email client provided by Microsoft. It was formerly known as Microsoft Internet Mail and News. It was available for several editions of Windows from Windows 98 to Windows Server 2003, Windows 3.x, Windows NT 3.51, Windows 95, Windows Vista, Mac system 7, Mac OS 8, and 9. The mailbox file where Outlook Express database is stored is DBX. Outlook Express was later replaced by Windows Mail.

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Features of Outlook Express

• It is a free utility bundled with Internet Explorer 4.0 to 6.0
• Manage multiple POP, IMAP, MSN, and Hotmail accounts
• Show emails in secure plain text format
• Protects the data by blocking remote image downloads
• Supportive to Windows 98/NT/2000/XP/ME
• Permit creating simple message rules for incoming mail filing
• Compose and receive HTML messages, create attractive emails with stationery

Versions of Outlook Express

Versions for Windows

Name	Release Year	Internet Explorer version bundled
Microsoft Internet Mail and News version 1.0	1996	Internet Explorer 3
Microsoft Internet Mail and News version 2.0	1996	Internet Explorer 3
Outlook Express 4.0	1998	Internet Explorer 4
Outlook Express 5.0	1999	Internet Explorer 5
Outlook Express 5.01	2000	Windows 2000
Outlook Express 5.5	2000	Windows ME
Outlook Express 6.0	2001	Windows XP

Versions for Mac

Name	IE version Bundled
Outlook Express 4.0	--
Outlook Express 5.01	Internet Explorer 5
Outlook Express 5.01	Internet Explorer 5.01
Outlook Express 5.5	Windows ME

Outlook Express Configuration

Follow the steps to set up Outlook Express emails –

• In Outlook Express, go to Tools menu and select Accounts
• Open the Mail tab from add menu and select Mail.
• Enter your full name in the name field and click Next.
• Provide desired information in e-mail server names page, and click Next.
• Provide email login details like account name and password. Click Next.
• Click Finish.
• Choose the account that you have created under Mail tab and go to Properties
• Go to Servers tab
• Choose Server requires authentication and hit Apply button
• Go to Advanced tab and provide port numbers, Outgoing Mail details and hit Ok.

Common issues with Outlook Express

• MS Outlook Express users face file corruption issues.
• It lacks security features
• It does not have effective spell checker like MS Outlook
• Outlook Express DBX files are small in size than 2 GB.

General Questions Asked by Users

Q – Unable to open attachments in Outlook Express. How to resolve this issue?

A – Outlook Express 6 has this feature due to which does not permit potential viruses from being opened or saved. You can turn it off and save the attachment. For this, go to Tools menu > Internet Options > Advanced and then change the settings.

Q – How to configure Outlook Express for various user accounts on the same system?

A – In MS Outlook Express, users can create multiple user profiles and can use their own personalized version to access the emails.

Q – How to move new messages automatically from the server and save them locally?

A – It is not possible as Outlook Express does not support mail filters on IMAP servers.

Conclusion

I hope after going through the above article you are able to collect all the basic information about Outlook Express including its file extension, its features, versions, problems faced by users, and many more.