Even More Things Bill Gates Never Told You

My laptop computer came with Vista. There are some things I don't care for in Vista. It took awhile to customize it so it pretty much looks like Windows XP, which is a great OS in my humble opinion. My server has XP, which I certainly prefer compared to Vista. One of the biggest problems with Vista is the email system. With XP, all you have to do is click on an email link on any web page and up pops your email default program such as Yahoo, Gmail, etc. With Vista, when you click any web page email link, instead of your default email, up pops MS Hot Mail, which I don't think is so "hot". In XP, it is very easy to set your default email program. This is not possible with Vista. MS Hot Mail is "hard wired" in the system to only use Hot Mail and you cannot change it to your default email program. Believe me, I've tried. Aggravating to say the very least if your default email isn't Hot Mail!

So, what can you do if you can't use your default email program? Well, I have a way around this. Just right click on the email link on the web page and choose "copy shortcut". Then open your preferred email program and simply paste the email link into the "To" address line, then go from there. This will save you a lot of aggravation when you always see the Hot Mail program turn up all of a sudden. If you're like me (heaven help you), you love to find easy ways around the "system".

I hope this will save you some time and frustration. It sure did me. One caveat, since some email links have the subject line automatically filled in for proper routing, it may pay you to let Hot Mail come up just to check this. If that is the case, then simply copy the subject and paste it into your email program.

In a future post, I will show you a foolproof method GUARANTEED to avoid ALL spam when you post your email address on chat groups, news groups, email news letters, on line shopping web sites, etc. Bet you can't wait for that one, huh! {:-o
(*) Mike (*)