Buzz Out Loud Lounge forum: E-mail clients - Outlook vs. Thunderbird vs. ???...

If your company uses MS Exchange then Outlook is the way to go. No doubt about it. Many mobile devices have greater support for Outlook over Thunderbird.

I would personally go with Thunderbird for a few reasons. First, TBird works on all platforms, Linux, Mac and Windows. I use all three and I can easily move my contacts from one to the other very easily, as I can saved e-mail.

Second, TBird uses the traditional mbox format which makes moving mail in and out Thunderbird or to another client (except Outlook) a cinch. I used to use Eudora and when moving to TBIrd, all I had to do was find out where to place the files. Not the case With Outlook. On Windows there is the freeware app 'MozBackup' which will import/export Firefox and TBird settings between Windows PCs.

Third, TBird is free. If you have only one computer, then you only have to buy Outlook once, but IMHO, that is once too many.

Both apps are good, just depends what you need. On my smart-phone, I pull the mail from the source and sync my contacts with the local address book. My employer does not have an MS Exchange system and it uses a third-party calendar, so Outlook wouldn't work for me.

...I have been able to move messages from Thunderbird to Eudora, and many web mail platforms (including Outlook).

Can you clarify what that means?

By the way, since I had a copy of Outlook 2007 (my company gets MS discounts on Office -- $19 for 2007), I've finally decided to use it for my local email client. I don't connect it to an Exchange server. I just think it does a very good job of handling my email, and still segregates my Hotmail accounts vs. Outlook Express adding all Hotmail to my Inbox. (Hotmail has gone to Pop3.)

I'm just not crazy about Windows Live Mail. I tried that for awhile, but Outlook 2007 does the job best for me. It's overkill for a local email client, but for $19, who can complain?

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102225181033.aspx

Shalin, I love mysteries like this with software (now that's geeky!). Can you give more info about the calendar not working?

You said it was both read-only but also that you couldn't access it. Do you mean you couldn't access it to edit it but you could still read it? Is this a home version out Outlook not connected to an Exchange server? What version of Outlook?

Do you get a pop-up message when you try to add anything to the calendar, or exactly what does happen?

If you don't mind some sleuthing, I'm game for the exercise.

A lot of people get this error when it comes time to try and print something. This isn't your issue, so I'll ignore the suggestions having to do with that right now.

But, I have seen that people who have non-native Add-In's can get this error, too. Here's one guys solution --turned out to be his Google toolbar Add-In in Outlook, but note that it could be ANY Add-In, so I would give them all a shot:

"In Outlook 2003:


Click Tools > Click Options > Click Other tab > Click Advanced Options.


Click the Add-In Manager button. Remove any reference to Google desktop. (or any other Add-In not native to Outlook) Click ok.

Note:

Do the same series of tasks for the "Com Add-Ins" button."

So again, the Google reference above may or may not apply to your Outlook. The real test is to uncheck any/all Add-Ins and Com Add-Ins and test. Close Outlook. I would reboot for safe measure and try the program again. You can always re-enable the Add-Ins if it doesn't prove to the be the solution.

If you uncheck them all and find it now works, then you would probably want to check them individually and retest to see when the problem comes back. Or, you could uncheck individually and retest (after shutting outlook and rebooting) and see which, if any, solve the issue.

If none of those steps help, you can always create a new profile and point it to your existing "PST" mail folders. Very simple to do, and you don't lose anything (except for maybe a Signature that you would have to recreate).

Follow the steps here:

http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/profile.htm

Make sure you do NOT "copy existing profile", because if the current one is corrupt, the new one will inherit that, too.