Microsoft® Windows® XP Unleashed

Getting Started with Outlook Express

Many people ask why Microsoft has churned out two very similar versions of what is essentially the same product: Outlook and its diminutive sibling Outlook Express.

The confusion is understandable, if you are only looking at how each application is used: both are primarily e-mail messaging clients. But to call Outlook just an e-mail client is something that drives the marketers at Microsoft nuts, because that is not how they wanted Outlook to be perceived.

The e-mail functionality of Outlook was originally supposed to play a smaller role in the overall Outlook package. It was a means to an end, not the end itself. Outlook, with its Task and Calendar tools, was designed to work in tandem with Microsoft Exchange ...