- First impression: It indeed seems that the good old Outlook Express is back. Although the GUI has changed somewhat. OE-classic seems to use the same/a similar email storage structure as Thunderbird. ("Sqlite" ???)
- The problem is that my email & internet "situation" is not quite straight forward.
- I think I even will buy the PRO version (at a later stage) for $ 25.
- Second impression. Yes, the good old Outlook Express is/seems to be back. Yes, the developers have done their best to re-create the way OE used to "look & feel (like)" and they did a surprising good job, IMO. Need to use & test it more though.
- Adding support for IMAP is now "Top Priority" for the developers of OE Classic (OEC).
- The program still contains a number of small and (somewhat) larger bugs. E.g in the GUI. Post #8 in this thread gives a clue of what kind of bugs the developers have to deal with. Anyone who is interested in helping the developers to get rid of these bugs is very welcome to "join the gang".
- Like the old OE, OEC uses a number of thing from IE. So, IE is required to be present on one's system.
- Windows XP came with a number of programs I still use on my Win 7 system. E.g. MS Works 2003 and MS Photo Editor (found a stand alone version on the internet). And now OE has joined the gang of those old programs. And OEC is - for the time being - & in - at least - one regard better than Thunderbird.
Willy2, I see where you can only add two email accounts to the free version, not a problem for me during testing. I wondering though how to get those two account folders displayed in the Folders pane on the left. Even though I have two Hotmail / Live mail accounts added, only one set of folders are shown. I haven't run across anything yet in the Help section. Does the "paid" version show all account folders?
- When you use 2 email adresses in one "Identity" then the emails will be collected in the same Inbox. The PRO version allows you to separate those email adresses, each in a separate "Identity".
- The weblog post of October 2016 mentions that the developers are already busy testing & tweaking OEC's support for IMAP.
- Have been "torturing" the program now for a while. And, of course, I already did find a bunch of things that can & will be improved in one of the next versions. But these bugs were predoninantly issues with how the GUI "behaves".
- Buyers of the PRO version are allowed to preview & test the new Beta versions.
- When the new Beta version is considered to be stable (enough) then a new free version will be released.
- OE Classic stores - like Thunderbird - the emails in a separate part of the "c:\users" folders, making it comparatively easy to back up the emails. (Zip them up & copy) In that regard Windows Live Email was a nightmare.
- I still like OEC's GUI better than Thunderbird's one.
- Although the program still has some small to minor GUI problems the program runs well and the GUI is good.
- For the time being I can live without IMAP support.
- Users can subscribe to the free OE Classic newsletter.
- OE Classic uses parts of Internet Explorer ( and Edge ??)
Conclusion: I am not going back to Thunderbird. I think OE Classic can become a serious competitor for Thunderbird.