Express Assistant May Be What You Need

Most Good Booters know by now I recommend Outlook Express (XP) and Windows Mail (Vista) as e-mail clients. But because it never ceases to amaze me why so many do not take advantage of these XP and Vista programs, I’m going to mention them again.

OE and WM are e-mail clients used to "manage" e-mail. Simply put, they’re programs configured to go to an ISP’s mail box or multiple ISP mail boxes (Comcast, Embarqmail, Gmail and yes, even AOL) and return the mail to your computer. They’re an alternative to accessing your e-mail via the Web not necessarily a substitute. If you’re not at your computer, you can always access your e-mail from anywhere via the Internet.

In my opinion it makes sense to be able to download your e-mail and attachments to your computer where at your convenience you can organize and edit your e-mail, save your important e-mail and relocate your attachments to appropriate XP and Vista folders. And by the way, do so without having to be online.

But perhaps one of the most important features of OE and WM is you can create a universal address book that’s appropriate for a single ISP or multiple ISP’s. One that because it’s a permanent resident on your computer can be backed up, even exported and available to be imported into OE and WM on a new or alternate computer.

Backing up your Address Book requires only a couple of clicks. Simple enough to encourage you to do so each time you add a new contact.

However because there’s never been a truly novice friendly way to completely backup the OE and WM program, I suggest if your e-mail, attachments and how you organize OE or WM is important, you should consider investing in a third party backup program.

I personally recommend Express Assistant (http://ajsystems.com). A trial version is available.
Express Assistant backs up all of OE and WM to include your mail, attachments, registry settings, and message rules. Its backup can be saved to a folder you create in Documents or My Documents to be included in your periodic data backup.

Express Assistant’s backup will completely restore OE and WM after a system failure or can be used to transfer the programs to an alternative and/or new computer.
And for those like me prone to older adult forgetfulness, Express Assistant can be configured to remind you to perform a backup.

Here’s wishing you a Good Boot.