Outlook Express Setup

We provide step by step instructions (following) to setup Outlook Express on a Windows machine. You may find that your version of Outlook Express has slightly different entry boxes, but you should be able to glean the information you need to complete your task at hand

Step 1

On your main Windows 95/98 screen locate and click on "Outlook Express" icon.

Step 2

Click on "Tools".

Step 3

Click on "Accounts".

Step 4

You may be on the "Mail" tab; if you are, click on the "All" tab.

Step 5

You'll notice all these crazy names such as "Bigfoot", "InfoSpace", "WhoWhere", etc, and our advice is to remove ALL these entries. You will in all likelyhood never use them.

Step 6

Now you've removed ALL the bogus accounts supplied by Microsoft and are ready to add your own email. Click on the "Add" button.

Step 7

The following box pops up and you need to fill in the name you would like to appear on your email.

We use "Mr & Mrs Clementine" for our example.

Then click "Next".

Step 8

The next part is pretty critical. If you don't enter your email address correctly, our system will not accept outgoing email from you. In our example below, Mr & Mrs Clementine's email name is "clementine", so you'll see that their email "address" is: clementine@qcislands.net.

Then click "Next".

Step 9

This part is just as critical. You need to tell Outlook Express the name of our incoming and outgoing mail computers. This is not an email address! (Some people get this confused).. Our mail computer's name is "mail.qcislands.net", and this is what you enter here.

Then click "Next".

Step 10

Another confusing thing about windows is the usage of the terms "Account name", "user name", "POP3 name", "login name" and a host of others. These terms all refer to the very same name. In our example the name is "clementine". These should not be confused with your "email address" which is a combination of your "Account name" and our domain name "qcislands.net" (or "haidagwaii.net" or "qcislands.ca").

Fill in your POP3 name (which is your Account name, user name, login name etc), and the password which you selected when you opened your account and make sure the tick mark is in the "Remember password" spot. Your email password is the very same password you use to sign on with. On our internet system you have only one identification name which you use to sign on and fetch your email, and you have only one password.

do NOT tick the "Log on using Secure Password Authentication" ... it won't work

Then click "Next".

Step 11

Click on "Finish".

Which brings you to this screen.

Then click "Close".

Step 12

Click on "Tools".

Click on "Options" at the bottom.

Step 13

Click the box marked "When starting, go directly to my 'Inbox' folder".

Find the number "30" on the screen and change it to "31".

Click the "Send" tab.

Step 14

Find Mail Sending Format, notice that it starts off with a tick "HTML". Change this to "Plain Text".

Step 15

Click on "OK".

At this point you are back at the Outlook Express main screen. Click on the "X" in the top right hand side of the Outlook Express window which will "close" the program. This will "save" all the settings you've just completed.

To test that you've entered everything correctly, try sending yourself an email. This may sound funny, and some people aren't aware you can do this, but your email address is just as valid as a destination as anyone else's.

If you can "send" an email to yourself, then "receive" it back, and then "reply" to it, and "receive" your reply back, you have successfully configured your email! If one of these four testing steps fails it will be the critical settings in "Step 8", "Step 9" and "Step 10" above which you should verify that you've entered correctly.

You're done! Enjoy!