Windows Live Mail continues Microsofts tradition of creating excellent email clients that are fully featured and easy to use. Windows Live Mail can be installed on any version of Windows from Windows XP onwards. If you are using Windows 7 you will find that there is no email program of any kind installed and you will need to download and install Windows Live Mail from the Windows Live Website on the internet. To download and install Windows Live Mail please consider reading our tutorial on downloading and installing Windows Live Mail.

Windows Live Mail supports both IMAP and POP3 mail servers and can be configured to collect mail from your Internet Service Provider, work or personal email server.

When you first use Windows Live Mail and open it for the first time it will most likely automatically run the Add an email account wizard for you. If this is the case you can skip to the second page of this tutorial on configuring Windows Live Mail and start at the Add an email account screen that has an email address field at the top.

To configure Windows Live Mail so that it can be used with your email provider click on your start menu.

Select all programs on your start menu. You can hasten things along by clicking on it.

You will be able to see the different programs installed on your computer and one of the program groups is Windows Live, click on this and you will see all of the programs you installed from the Windows Live website. Click on Windows Live Mail.

Windows Live Mail has a beautifully stream lined appearance that is very straightforward and functional. The menus that you would generally not use on a daily basis are hidden from view to simplify Windows Live Mails appearance.

Revealing the menu bar is really quite easy, click on the Menus button on the top right hand corner of Windows Live Mail and then click on Show Menu Bar. If you have problems finding the Menus button hold down your ALT button on your keyboard and press the M key.