What to replace Outlook Express and Works?

bremen1874 · 19 Dec 2012 at 03:04

I'm sorting out a PC for an elderly user after their old PC died.

They were using XP, Outlook Express, and some version of MS Works.

The new PC is running Window 8 and I'm looking for an inexpensive and user friendly option that'll handle their e-mail (BT) and some simple word processing and spreadsheets.

I normally deal with SMEs where the cost of a version of MS Office that includes Outlook isn't a major issue. In this case the furthest I could go is the Home & Student edition.

At the moment I'm looking at either Home & Student + Live Mail, or moving everything over to Google.

I'm rather out of my comfort zone, so any thoughts would be appreciated. Just dealing with the transition from XP to Windows 8 is going to be painful enough!

Stoner81 · 19 Dec 2012 at 04:27

I would say Thunderbird for email and try either Libre Office or one by a company called Kingsoft all of them are free to use

Stoner81.

StringJunky · 19 Dec 2012 at 05:09

For the email client I use Emailtray. It will prioritise your client's email as well as being intuitive and easy to use. It's free.

http://www.emailtray.com/

A free word processor not to far removed from MS Word is Abiword which is an open source project.

http://www.abisource.com/download/

Vimes · 19 Dec 2012 at 09:27

Windows Live Mail - the Desktop edition, is an ideal replacement for OE - in fact it is just a continuation for MS as a free email client. That would be really useful for the person youhave noted as the learning curve would be quite minimal. I know this as I have just done the same when replacing a workstation which had XP on it to a new Windows 8 laptop. The person was quite familar with the WLM application having used OE in XP.

As noted Libre Office is fine, but I guess the others are too for your other needs.

Deleted member 77746 · 19 Dec 2012 at 12:54

Windows Live Mail replaced Outlook Express. It's the better free ones. What is up with webmail anyway?

bremen1874 · 19 Dec 2012 at 13:07

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'm going to try them with Libre Office and the desktop version of Live Mail.

There's nothing wrong with webmail, but isn't what they're used to. The more familiar things are the better.

The situation isn't helped by my personal dislike of Windows 8. I've had it available since it first went RTM, but still haven't managed to raise the enthusiasm to use it properly.

Stoner81 · 21 Dec 2012 at 04:33

I have plenty of enthusiasm for Windows 8... it's called hate!

Stoner81.

Deleted member 77746 · 21 Dec 2012 at 09:54

bremen1874 said:
The more familiar things are the better.

Have to disagree with you there. Computer breaks theres a big chance every email gone, forever. (Depends on the config)

Cuchulain · 21 Dec 2012 at 09:56

mrbell1984 said:
Have to disagree with you there. Computer breaks theres a big chance every email gone, forever. (Depends on the config)

Who uses POP3 nowadays?

Deleted member 77746 · 21 Dec 2012 at 10:05

Cuchulain said:
Who uses POP3 nowadays?

Home users. You will be suprised. I did 8 jobs in the last week and 5 of them used pop3. They were migrated over to webmail.

Macro · 21 Dec 2012 at 10:22

Keep in mind if you use outlook.com or Skydrive you have access to the web based versions of Office 2010 apps free...

Vimes · 21 Dec 2012 at 10:35

bremen1874 said:
Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'm going to try them with Libre Office and the desktop version of Live Mail.

There's nothing wrong with webmail, but isn't what they're used to. The more familiar things are the better.

The situation isn't helped by my personal dislike of Windows 8. I've had it available since it first went RTM, but still haven't managed to raise the enthusiasm to use it properly.

Good choice

I use the desktop edition, and so does my wife. Using that and configured with the IMAP settings for my webmail accounts means that I can download and respond etc all within the one client when I'm using the desktop PC. Keeping all the mail on the server is also useful.