Student E-mail
Outlook Express Frequently Asked Questions
Note: We also have Frequently Asked Questions about IMP mailer for staff www.lboro.ac.uk/it/mail/staff-faq.html and Frequently Asked Questions about IMP mailer for students www.lboro.ac.uk/it/mail/student-faq.html.
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Why does it ask me if I want to open the file when I open an attachment?
You are using Windows XP with the new security features of Service Pack 2.
If Outlook Express can not determine the safety of an attachment when you try to open it, you will see the following dialogue:
Do not open the file unless you are expecting this file from this sender and you trust the sender. It may well be safer to right-click the file and chose Save As, and open the saved file later. This way there is more chance for the Anti-Virus software to inspect the file. Never open or save an attachment from an unsolicited e-mail (spam).
Reminder of our Internet and E-mail Scams and Viruses web page www.lboro.ac.uk/it/mail/scam.html.
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Why can't I see the pictures in an e-mail message?
You are using Windows XP with the new security features of Service Pack 2.
Sometimes when an e-mail includes a picture, displaying the picture relays information about you to an external web site. This can then be used to send you even more unsolicited e-mail (spam). Outlook Express now blocks such pictures until you allow the program to download pictures. Do not download pictures unless you are absolutely certain of the sender (and remember, "From:" e-mail addresses can be falsified easily). Never download pictures for an unsolicited e-mail (spam). In short, NEVER CLICK TO DOWNLOAD PICTURES.
Pictures in the e-mail message are not displayed: they are replaced by a rectangle indicating their size and a small red cross (just like a missing picture in a web page). A new text area has appeared under the Subject: area containing:
Some pictures have been blocked to help prevent the sender from identifying your computer. Click here to download pictures.
NEVER CLICK TO DOWNLOAD PICTURES!
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Why do I get a warning that another program is sending mail as me?
You are using Windows XP with the new security features of Service Pack 2.
If another program tries to send a message to contacts in your Address Book without your approval, you will be warned. This is how viruses can be spread. Never allow a program to do this.
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Why doesn't my Inbox appear automatically?
- Outlook Express performs three functions: E-mail, Newsgroups, and Contacts (an Address Book), and by default shows all three functions. In the left-hand frame you should see a list of Folders, the top one being Outlook Express (and highlighted); in the right-hand frame a list of these functions, and at the foot of this frame a checkbox When Outlook Express starts, go directly to my Inbox. If you click this checkbox, the next time you start Outlook Express, it will start with your Inbox just like IMP. If you ever want to see the original initial screen again, click Outlook Express in the left-hand "Folders" frame.
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Why can't I miss off the @lboro.ac.uk from the e-mail address?
- The old Eudora system allowed you to omit the @ and the following end-part of the e-mail address. This, in fact, breaks the standards defined for e-mail client handlers. To avoid users continually getting messages from the e-mail server saying "Invalid e-mail address" we "cheated" the system, and added @lboro.ac.uk automatically. Naturally users have got used to this.
The new Outlook Express system does follow the e-mail standards, and rejects e-mail addresses which do not have an @ sign, before our software gets a chance to append @lboro.ac.uk. There is nothing we can do about this.
The correct solution is to use the Address Book to set up your contacts list. then, when composing a mail message, click on the To: button. In the dialogue box select someone (from the drop-down list, from typing their name, or from the Find option) and then click on To:, Cc:, or Bcc as appropriate; repeat if necessary, and then click OK.
We recommend that regularly (perhaps each term?), from the address book, you use the File and then Export command to create a file of your contacts, and back this up (e.g. to a floppy disk). If you were to encounter problems and lose all of your contacts without a backup, you would appreciate having the backup!
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Why does my new mail not appear automatically?
- Outlook Express checks for new mail every 30 minutes. If you press F5 or select View and then Refresh from the menu, new mail will appear immediately; however this can cause other problems such as read mail appearing as unread, and is no longer recommended. Indeed it is strongly recommended that this is not used.
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Why don't I get a sound when my mail arrives?
- Assuming that you have a loudspeaker and it's working, (try and play a .wav sound file), please check these steps:
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In Outlook Express, from the menu select Tools and then Options... On the General tab you will find an option Play sound when new messages arrive.
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From the Windows Start menu, select Settings and then Control Panel. Scroll down (if necessary) to the Sounds and Audio Devices (Windows XP) or Sounds and Multimedia (Windows 2000) option, and double-click it. On the Sounds tab, under Program events (Windows XP) or Sound Events (Windows 2000) scroll down to New Mail Notification, and click on it. It should have a name in the drop-down list; if not, search for it in the drop-down list. Any sound you select from this list, or from the Browse... button, will be the sound which will be played. You will also see a "play" button
(a right arrow like you might find on a tape recorder) between
the drop-down list and the Browse...
button which will play the selected sound. -
On Windows XP: click on the Volume tab and ensure that the Mute checkbox is not selected and that the Device volume slider control is not set too low.
Click on Apply and then OK. Close the Control Panel.
On Windows 2000: At the bottom right of the dialogue box you should have a loudspeaker button
.
If this appears overlaid by a red circle with a red diagonal
bar overlaying it 
,
then it is set to "Mute" (i.e. sounds will not
play). In this case click it so that it is not set to "Mute".
Also check that the Sound Volume
slider control is not too low.Click on Apply and then OK. Close the Control Panel.
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Why can't I find my saved attachments?
- When Outlook Express saves an attachment, it does so in a temporary directory which is difficult to find (and not to be used - it is a temporary folder). Always choose the Save As... option, and select your My Documents folder (or a folder within).
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Why can't I find people from the Loughborough Staff Directory or Loughborough Student Directory in the Find People option?
- You may find that the directories will not find people just by surname, and you need to guess (all of) their initials, which is not helpful. If this is the case:-
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Select Tools and then Address Book... from the Outlook Express menu.
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Select Tools and then Accounts... from the Address Book menu.
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Select the Directory Service tab.
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Click on the Lboro Staff Services directory entry and click the Properties button.
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Select the Advanced tab.
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Ensure that the Use simple search filter check box is cleared.
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Repeat steps 4, 5, and 6 for the Lboro Student Services directory entry.
Now when you use Edit then Find and then People (Ctrl+E) you will only need to enter their Surname and not their Initials too.
Remember, however, that for people whose Surnames contain an apostrophe, such as O'Donnell, you must omit the apostrophe (it's not valid in an e-mail address), e.g. odonnell.
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- Normally when you use a dial-in service with an Internet Service Provider (I.S.P.), a system called POP-3 transfers your mail to your PC and deletes it from the server computer. We wanted to supply a mechanism whereby you can read your mail from on campus (e.g. from a computer lab via IMP) and from Outlook Express (e.g. from a student hall or off campus); if we used POP-3, when you read your mail in Outlook Express it would be deleted from the server and you couldn't read it later from anywhere else. Thus we chose to use a system called IMAP which leaves the mail on the server, and lets you read it online. This, however, means that the mechanism for deleting mail, and also for moving mail to different folders changes.
In the Folders pane you will see an Inbox and a Deleted Items in Local Folders, which does not affect us as yet [see How do I access mail from an I.S.P. account?]. Your mail appears in an Inbox in staff-mailin.lboro.ac.uk or student-mailin.lboro.ac.uk where there is no "Deleted Items" folder.
To delete a mail message, highlight it and press Ctrl+D, or select Edit and then Delete from the menu, or right click the message and select Delete from the pop-up menu, and you will see the message crossed out and a red cross appear on the envelope icon (if it disappears instead, read the next paragraph). The message does not go to a trash can / deleted items folder. Note that if you right-click you can select Undelete, or you can select Edit and then Undelete from the menu, so this does allow you to recover deleted items from the mailbox.
If you select View and then Current View from the menu, you will see a menu option Show Deleted Messages which is ticked; if you click on this menu option all your deleted messages will disappear from view. Selecting it again will make the deleted messages reappear.
There is more relevant information in the next question and answer...
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Do "crossed out" deleted messages disappear completely?
- No, you need to purge them. Click the Purge icon or from the menu Edit and then Purge Deleted Messages will completely remove deleted messages (like emptying your trash can / deleted messages folder).
Thus you might think that we have a different mechanism from a trash can, but which performs the same function: If we turn off Show Deleted Messages deleted messages disappear; when we want to see the trash can we can turn on Show Deleted Messages and see them (although they will be interspersed with the not deleted messages) and Undelete them, and we can Purge Deleted Messages to empty the trash can.
Please also note that if you select Tools and then Options... from the menu, the Maintenance tab has (second option) a check-box Purge deleted messages when leaving IMAP folders which, if checked, will do that - automatically empty your trash can.
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Why can I receive mail, but can't send it (from the office)?
- Select Tools and then Accounts from the menu. Select the Mail tab. Select staff-mailin.lboro.ac.uk and activate the Properties button. Select the Connection tab. Always connect to this account using should be on, and select Local Area Network from the drop down list.
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How do I access University mail from home / a dial-up line?
- When you access mail on a dial-up line using IMAP (as at Loughborough), it works differently from the POP-3 service used by most Internet Service Providers. Their system moves your mail from the server to your PC, while our system leaves mail on the server (which means that you can access it from anywhere using any computer), and it will still be available for you later, no matter how you access it. This means that when you connect (dial up) you can access your mail, but when you disconnect (hang up) you can not.
However, you can also work off-line, and take copies of some of your mail to work on off-line, provided that you first think about what you wish to achieve. When you are paying connection charges, it does not make sense to download all of your mail all of the time (it will be very slow and thus expensive).
Select Tools and then Options and select the Connection tab. Under Dial-up, select Hang up after sending and receiving. From now on, when you press Send and Receive, Outlook Express will connect if you are not already connected, update the mail, and disconnect when finished, thus saving your phone bill.
Ensure that File and then Work Offline is selected. Depending on your I.S.P. (Internet Service Provider) this may or may not disconnect you, but you can disconnect manually by right-clicking the modem icon in the taskbar and select Disconnect. You can now compose mail messages, and work on any in your local folder, until you are ready to send. Click Send and Receive and you will dial up, send and update the messages, and disconnect.
Now we will want to look at some mail when we are remotely connected, but not all. The idea is to decide in advance what you will want to work with at home, and organise some folders to enable this to work to your advantage. Click the IMAP Folders button. In the Show/Hide IMAP Folders dialog box, select a folder, and click Hide to prevent downloading its contents, or click Show to view the folder and download its contents.
Only the displayed folders will be downloaded when you synchronise the account.
If you right-click any IMAP folder you can select Synchronise Settings, which can be Don't synchronise, All messages, New messages only, or Headers only. Any folder marked Don't synchronise will not have its messages downloaded, while All Messages and New Messages Only are self-explanatory. Headers only will save much time by downloading just the Subject and who sent it, but not the actual body of the message. If you have selected Headers only you will get an error message if you attempt to read the message; what you can do is select the messages which are of interest to you (select the checkbox), and Tools -and then Synchronise Folder to read only the messages of importance. Also note that you can change the setting from Don't synchronise when you are at home if you do change your mind (you will be re-connected, the synchronisation will take place, and you can disconnect afterwards).
Example: You are going to work at home for a few days on "Project X". You set the "Project X" folder to "All messages", the Inbox to "Headers only", and all other folders to "Don't synchronise". When you connect from home, you can obtain all "Project X" mail and the headers of any new mail. New mail which is concerned with "Project X" or urgent (you should be able to tell from the subject line) can be selected and downloaded.
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How do I access mail from a normal I.S.P. account?
- You may already have an e-mail account from an Internet Service Provider (I.S.P.) and wish to access it from home. This will almost certainly use POP-3 rather than IMAP. You will use the Local Folders in Outlook Express. Now you will see that when you delete a mail item from the local folders inbox, or another local folder, it will appear in the local folders' Deleted Items (trash can), from which it can, if necessary, be recovered. Deleted (and moved) items really do disappear rather than staying there crossed out.
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How do I send a message to many people?
- From the new message dialogue box click To: and you have the Select recipients dialogue box. Select a person from the list of contacts, and then click To: -> to send the message to them; you can repeat this to send the message to several people. You can also select a person and click Cc:-> to have them on the "Carbon copies" list - they will get a copy of the message for their information, but are not necessarily expected to action it. Again, this can be repeated.
However, if you select several people in the To: or Cc: (Carbon copies) entries there is a limit of about 50 e-mail addresses (the list is sent as one long line and eventually the mailing system gives up); also everyone who receives the message will see everyone else's e-mail address and this may not be desirable.
When you create a new mail message (click the Create Mail icon, or select File and then New and then Mail Message from the menu), from the New Message menu select View and then All Headers. You will now see a new option under To: and Cc: called Bcc: (blind carbon copies). Click Bcc: and you can add individuals or groups to the people to "blind" receive the message. When they receive the message they will not see anyone else who was Bcc-ed (if there was no-one selected in To: they will see "Undisclosed Recipient"). Furthermore with Bcc: you will be able to mail more people as the mailer breaks the list of recipients into several lines where necessary.
Warning: You must not send unsolicited advertising to lots of people; it is acceptable to (say) send a newsletter to all the people in the chess club providing that your use of our computing facilities will not impinge on the running of our systems. See our Acceptable Use Policy www.lboro.ac.uk/it/policies/loughborough-aup.html. Also see our Mass E-mail Policy www.lboro.ac.uk/it/policies/mass-email.html.
There is more relevant information in the next question and answer...
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How can I set up a list of people to be contacted several times?
- You are advised to use the Mailing Lists Service www.lboro.ac.uk/it/people/mailinglists.html. Staff can use this to send to everyone in their department or section; students can use this for everyone in their module. Note that these mailing lists are updated automatically as people leave or join. Note that it is possible to ask for a new list to be set up (manually maintained), though for students this will usually only be allowed for the use of a Students' Union Club or Society.
- An alternative is for you to set up a group in the Address book. Click the New button and then New Group... Give your group a name, click Select Members, and add as many people from your address book to the group as you wish. You can now mail to the group instead of having to select all of the individuals each time. In either case, if there are many people it may be advisable to use Bcc: as described for How do I send a message to many people?
Warning: You must not send unsolicited advertising to lots of people; it is acceptable to (say) send a newsletter to all the people in the chess club providing that your use of our computing facilities will not impinge on the running of our systems. See our Acceptable Use Policy www.lboro.ac.uk/it/policies/loughborough-aup.html. Also see our Mass E-mail Policy www.lboro.ac.uk/it/policies/mass-email.html.
- Another useful mechanism is the Loughborough University Notice board. Registered staff can post notices for all staff at the Staff Noticeboard www.lboro.ac.uk/news/lboronotices/; registered staff and students can post notices for all students at the Student Noticeboard www.lboro.ac.uk/news/studentnotices/. In both cases you must be registered as a sender by e-mailing IT.Services@lboro.ac.uk. Notices can be e-mailed to an address at the foot of each page, and should be sent in plain text, with the Subject entry not blank. The notice (actually the subject, author, and a link to the notice) will be automatically displayed on the web page for 28 days, and in addition each weekend an extract of the notices posted in the week will be e-mailed to each staff / student member as appropriate. If the message is sent in Rich Text (HTML) format then the automatic weekly e-mail will not be able to make an extract of the notice.
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I received a message to say that an e-mail could not be delivered because it had too many recipients. Why is this and how can I get round it?
- This is a limitation of our e-mail service. Use the Bcc: option described in How do I send a message to many people? Also see How can I set up a list of people to be contacted several times? to see if you can use a mailing list.
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How do I send plain text messages?
- Messages can be sent in plain text or HTML format - the latter allows for formatting such as different fonts, bold type, and pictures. If you select Format from a New Message menu, you can set either Plain Text or Rich text (HTML) - one will have a dot next to it. If you change from Plain Text to Rich Text (HTML), an extra word-processing toolbar appears to allow you to select fonts and formatting options. If you change from Rich text (HTML) to Plain text and you have already typed anything into the message body, you will be warned that you will lose any formatting and given the option to cancel or continue (and also the option to never see this message again). Whichever is chosen becomes the default for all new messages.
- Some people with old computers may have a mail system which does not accept HTML. It is therefore good manners to always reply to mail in the same format in which it is sent - select Tools and then Options and the Send tab allows you to select this. In addition, when you add a contact to the Address Book (or if you amend their Properties), at the foot of the Name tab is a checkbox Send E-Mail using plain text only - set this if required.
Note that if a person who has a mail system which does not accept messages in HTML, does in fact receive a message in HTML format, it will not be in the message body, but in the form of an attachment. Thus they can read it (of course, they may be scared off by warning messages about attachments possibly containing viruses!).
- Some automatic services do not accept HTML. Good examples are the student announcement notice board www.lboro.ac.uk/news/studentnotices/ and the staff notice board www.lboro.ac.uk/news/lboronotices/index.html. Here you can e-mail notices which must be in plain text. The subject of the e-mail is automatically placed on the web page for a month, and a link is provided to the actual message. In addition, each weekend a summary of new notices is e-mailed to all students or staff as appropriate; this includes the first few lines of the e-mail and a link to the message itself. If the e-mail is in HTML format the automatic system leaves this blank.
- Warning. Even if you choose Plain text format, if you paste text from Microsoft Word or similar packages, your message will not be in plain text (despite the fact that the Format menu says it is Plain text). You can change it to plain, by selecting Format and then Rich Text and then Format and then Plain Text from the menu!
What you can do instead is copy the text from Word and paste it into Notepad (a truly plain text editor usually available from Accessories in your Windows Start menu). Now highlight the text again in Notepad, copy again, and paste the result into your Outlook Express e-mail message. This will be true plain text.
- I
have created a folder - why does it not appear in Outlook Express
(or why does it not appear where I expect it)?
- This may happen because you have created the folder in IMP, or occasionally Outlook Express seems to not refresh its display. To get Outlook Express to find all your folders on our server, click the IMAP Folders button or from the menu select Tools and then IMAP Folders... and then click Reset List.
If this does not make the folder display in the folders pane, it may be because Outlook Express has decided to "hide" the folder. In the folders pane select staff-mailin.lboro.ac.uk. The folder should appear in the main pane. Right-click the folder and select Show.
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How do I set up message rules? (Staff only)
- Message rules do not work with IMAP folders. However staff should use IMP to set up message rules (staff only) https://staff-webmail.lboro.ac.uk/filters.html.
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I have a warning that an attachment possibly contains a virus - what should I do?
- Attachments can indeed contain viruses. If you ever receive an e-mail message from someone you do not know (an unsolicited message) which contains an attachment, you are advised to delete the message without even reading it. If the e-mail does come from someone you know, especially if you are using our Anti-Virus Software and keeping it up to date, then you should be alright to open it or save it to disk. Outlook Express does, rightly, warn you of the possibility of viruses. Do note, however, that it takes a while between a new virus being released and Anti-Virus software experts detecting it, finding a counter-measure, and distributing it to their users. Therefore we can make no guarantees about any attachment always being safe to open.
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How do I access Loughborough University e-mail from home?
- The best way is to use the IMP mailer via your web browser. If you wish to use Outlook Express, it must be a sufficiently recent version, such as 5.50 to handle IMAP correctly. Follow the instructions for setting up Outlook Express to access University e-mail from home www.lboro.ac.uk/it/mail/oe-setup-home.html.
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I am using Outlook Express to access Loughborough University e-mail via a dial-up line and it no longer automatically disconnects the telephone line after receiving new mail - how can I stop incurring these telephone charges?
- You are probably used to receiving e-mail from your Internet Service Provider (I.S.P.) via a mechanism called POP-3 which copies mail from their server to your PC and deletes the original mail from their server, then disconnects the telephone line so you can read the mail while incurring no charges. Loughborough University e-mail is accessed via a mechanism called IMAP which keeps the mail on our server (though you can choose to copy mail or just headers from / to one or more folders). It depends entirely on how your I.S.P. is set up as to whether the modem will be disconnected after receiving mail and / or synchronising folders, and is out of our control. Indeed it may even be the case that the modem will remain connected even after you terminate Outlook Express. This can, especially if you pay connection charges, be something of an unpleasant surprise.
When you succeed in making a connection via your modem, you should notice a green "modem" icon in your Windows taskbar
(it's intended to represent two computer screens talking to
each other). When you disconnect, a red cross appears on the
icon while it hangs up the telephone line, and then the icon
disappears. If this does not happen and you do wish to disconnect,
then you can right-click the modem icon and select Disconnect
from the pop-up menu.We recommend that you keep watching the modem icon when you first use Outlook Express via a dial-up modem, and every time you change any of the settings!
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How do I open an attachment I have received called WINMAIL.DAT or AT00001.DAT?
- The sender is using Microsoft Outlook, and it is sending data only understandable to itself. You may have a plain text version of the e-mail. Ask the sender to read the Microsoft article on Outlook T.N.E.F. format at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;241538
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Why have I not received an attachment when one was sent?
- This can be caused by the sender using Microsoft Outlook (not Outlook Express) and sending in "rich text". There is an attachment is when viewed in IMP which has a file type of application / ms-tnef. Only users of Microsoft Outlook can understand such attachments, so it is not simply a problem with Outlook Express.
The only solution possible at present is to ask the sender of the e-mail to send the message in plain text. They can also change your entry in their Address Book to Send E-mail using plain text only, and the problem will not recur. Ask the sender to read the Microsoft article on Outlook T.N.E.F. format and attachments at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;197066
- How many e-mails
should I keep in my Inbox?
- It is difficult to be precise, but a couple of hundred should be O.K., and a thousand will be too many. If you wish to keep an archive of old messages, please create new folders to do so, say on a monthly basis. You can create a new folder from the menu with File -> Folder -> New; you could name them Arch[year][month] e.g. Arch0511 for November 2005. You can move mail from your Inbox to another folder by selecting the mail, right-click, and select Move to Folder from the pop-up menu. To select several pieces of mail at once, select the first, then scroll to the last and hold down Shift while you click on the last. An alternative is to select the first and hold down Shift while you use the down arrow key to select the next ones.
See also our Responsible E-mail use page www.lboro.ac.uk/it/mail/responsible.html.
- I
get a message "Insufficient memory and / or disk resources?"
- what should I do?
- In the Folders pane, click on the minus sign - next to the staff-mailin.lboro.ac.uk folder. Then click on the + sign next to staff-mailin.lboro.ac.uk.
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Why can't recipients read my attachments?
- There are three likely possibilities. One is that you are sending an Office 2000 or Office 2003 file version to someone who has an earlier version, and they can't read it. You need to save the file as an earlier version, use the File menu option Save As..., and from the Save As Type drop-down list select Word97-2003 & 6.0/95 - RTF (*.doc) if you are using Office 2003 or Word97-2000 & 6.0/95 - RTF (*.doc) if you use Office 2000.
- Another possibility is that if your recipient is using a dial-up line and an Internet Service Provider, they may have set a maximum file size, and your attachment exceeds this. Using WinZip may reduce the size of your attachment.
- The other possibility is that your settings are incorrectly splitting the message into smaller parts. In this case the recipient will receive n incoming emails with a subject followed by [1/n], [2/n], ..., [n/n], each of which contains a part of your e-mail. Attempting to open part of (for example) a Word document is not successful. To solve this, from Outlook Express select Tools and then Accounts.... Ensure that the Mail tab is selected, select staff-mailin.lboro.ac.uk, and click on Properties. Select the Advanced tab. The option under Sending reading Break apart messages larger than (followed by an option to set a number of KB) should not be set.
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Why can't I find or see a message which I should have?
Ensure that you have not told Outlook Express to hide messages using the following procedure:
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From your Outlook Express menu, select View and then Current View.
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Ensure that Show All Messages is selected.
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Ensure that Show Deleted Messages is selected. [If the message has been deleted but not purged, it will appear crossed out. You can right-click any such message and select Undelete from the pop-up menu.]
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Select Customize Current View....
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Under 1. Select the Conditions for your view: ensure that For all messages is selected.
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Under 2. View Description it should say, For all messages Show the message. If it says Hide the message instead, click on Hide, and select Show messages, and then OK from the dialogue box.
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Click OK.
If that doesn't work, read on.
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I've tried that - I've been told I need to reset my folders - how do I do that?
When Outlook Express uses IMAP (as we do at Loughborough University), the mail messages and headers are stored on the mail server. However, a copy of the headers and (depending on the settings and whether you have read the message) the message is stored on your own computer - this is called the "local cached copy". This means that you can read messages you have previously read, even if your computer is no longer connected to the network.
If something should go amiss with Outlook Express, for example: it loses the dates on messages, you may need to delete your local cached copies of messages and headers, and re-load them from the mail server; use the following procedure:
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From your Outlook Express menu, select Tools and then Options....
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Select the Maintenance tab.
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Click on the Clean Up Now... button.
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In the File Information area you will see Local file(s) for: with a default of Outlook Express. If you leave this default, you will re-set all Outlook Express folders. To re-set one folder, click on the Browse... button, and select required the folder from the dialogue box, and click OK. Click the Reset button to reset the folder. [To do more than one folder, repeat this procedure.]
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When finished, press Close and then OK.
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Select the folder (or folders) you have Reset to see the newly refreshed message headers.
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My mail prints out at the wrong size. How do I fix that?
After you upgrade Microsoft Internet Explorer to version 5.5, the print drivers may not be set to the same font size as the text size. To resolve this, change the font size to "smallest" in both Outlook Express and Internet Explorer, re-start Windows, and change the font size back to "medium" in both, using the following steps:
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Set the smallest font size in Outlook Express.
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Start Outlook Express.
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On the Tools menu, click Options.
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On the Read tab, click Fonts.
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In Font size, select Smallest, click OK, and then click OK.
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Exit Outlook Express.
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Set the smallest font size in Internet Explorer.
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Start Internet Explorer.
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On the View menu, point to Text Size, and then click Smallest.
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Exit Internet Explorer.
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Re-start Windows.
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From the Start button, select Shut Down..., Restart, and then OK.
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Set the medium font size in Outlook Express.
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Start Outlook Express.
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On the Tools menu, click Options.
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On the Read tab, click Fonts.
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In Font size, click Medium, click OK, and then click OK.
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Exit Outlook Express.
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Set the medium font size in Internet Explorer.
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Start Internet Explorer.
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On the View menu, point to Text Size, and then click Medium.
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Exit Internet Explorer.
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I've been asked to supply "mail headers". How do I do that?
You may be asked for mail headers by the Information Desk if you receive an upsetting e-mail or one containing a virus or worm. The mail headers supply technical information about who a message purports to be from (although these can be faked).
Open the message. From the message's menu select File and then Properties (or press Alt+ENTER). The Detail tab shows you the Internet headers for this message:
Right-click in this text and select Select All. Right-click in the text again and select Copy. Click OK to close this window.
Click the Forward button, then right-click at the top of the mail text and select Paste. Fill in the To: e-mail address in the usual manner and you are now ready to forward the message and its headers as required.
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Mail which I have read suddenly appears as unread - how can I stop this?
From the menu select Tools and then Options. Select the General tab. Ensure that the checkbox Check for new messages is checked, and that the following option is set to 30 minutes. Do not use F5 or View and then Refresh from the menu. Also be sparing with the Send / Receive button, and Edit and then Purge Deleted Messages. This should alleviate the problems, but we can not guarantee that it will never recur.
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I Replied to an e-mail and the reply went to a different e-mail address than the sender. Why?
The sender of the e-mail has taken the option of setting a "Reply-to" e-mail address. When you Reply to an e-mail address, this is the e-mail address which will be used (if it is set), though Outlook Express does not make this clear. For example, J. Doe (with an e-mail address at lboro.ac.uk) sets the Reply-to address to J. Doe (at some other place) perhaps because they wish to read the e-mail replies at home. In Outlook Express you will simply see the name of J. Doe. Another example, J. Doe sets the Reply-to address to be their superior F. Bloggs, perhaps because they are leaving the University and need the issue to be completed by F. Bloggs. In Outlook Express the message still says it is from J. Doe (correctly), but when you choose Reply, the To: portion of the message still says J. Doe, even though the message will go to F. Bloggs. The only way you can tell that this has happened is to right-click J. Doe in the To: entry in the message and select Properties. The E-mail address will read F. Bloggs (and the name will still read J. Doe!).