If you're struggling to set up yout email using Outlook Express then you may find the following guides helpful.

• How can I collect from a new email account?
• How can I setup a return email address to myname@mycompany.co.uk?
• How can I collect from a number of different email accounts?

If you sign up with a new ISP you will probably have a new email account to collect email from. Generally speaking you will want to continue to collect email from the old account as well, and so you will need to configure a new account within Outlook Express.

This is also useful if you want to collect your work email from home as well as from work.

Before you proceed, make sure you have the following information to hand (it should be supplied by your ISP):

• The Incoming mail (POP3) server address, often something like pop3.yourisp.net
• The Outgoing mail (SMTP) server address, often something like smtp.yourisp.net
• Your Account Name and Password.
• Your Email Address. In some cases both server addresses will be the same - that's fine.

To setup the new account, first start Outlook Express and go to Tools > Accounts, where you will be presented with a screen similar to the following:

Click the Add button on the right and then select Mail. You will be asked for information in stages as follows - enter each bit as requested then click Next>

• The Display Name - this is just your name or however you like to be known. It will appear in any emails you send.
• Your Email Address. This should be your prefered email address, ie the one which people should reply to when they reply to emails you send. If you have more than one email account then it doesn't have to be the one associated with the account you are now setting up.
• The POP3 and SMTP server addresses. These are the values given to you by your ISP.
  IMPORTANT: The SMTP address must be the one supplied by whichever ISP you dial up / connect to, and not necessarily the one for the account you are configuring. For example, if you dial up to Freeserve but are now configuring Outlook Express to collect email from Demon then you must enter Freeserve's SMTP address here, not Demon's. The POP3 address, on the other hand, must be the one for the email account you are configuring (Demon in this example).
• Your Account Name and Password as supplied by your ISP.

Unfortunately, Outlook Express only does half the job when configured automatically through its wizard, so there are a few other bits to complete before we're really done.

You will see the new account listed using the pop3 server address you entered above as its name. Make sure this new account is selected and click the Properties button on the right.

Change the name of mail account from the POP3 server address to something more meaningful, such as "Mark's Freeserve email"

Fill in the Organization field to something appropriate such as your company name (you can leave it blank if you prefer).

If you don't want to collect email for this account whenever you do a "send and receive", turn off the option at the foot of the dialog.

If you are also collecting the email for thie new account elsewhere (eg at work) be sure to select the Advanced tab, and tell Outlook Express to "Leave a copy of messages on server".

When done, click OK.

If you want this new account to be your main email account, tell Outlook Express this by clicking Set As Default on the right.

When you are finished, click Close.

You may want to set up Outlook Express so that when you send emails they will apear as if they have been sent from sales@mycompany.co.uk rather than sales@mycompany.freeserve.co.uk. Indeed, this is recommended if you have a company domain name, and it is easily achievable by following these simple steps.

IMPORTANT If you have an internet account with BT (eg an email address like joebloggs@btinternet.com) then you may find that you cannot send email after making these changes. If so, you will need to change back. In some cases BT require that you register your domain through them (and at higher cost, of-course) although there is no technical need to require it and to our knowledge no other ISP behaves the same way. We would recommend changing your ISP if this is a problem to you.

Start by opening Outlook Express and going to Tools > Accounts. You will be presented with something similar to the following screen:

Select the account you wish to set up, and select Properties. Make sure that the the General tab is selected:

By filling in the "E-mail address" with your sales@mycompany.co.uk email address, any emails you send will show up on the recipient's machine with that as your return address. In fact your old address will not be seen at all unless the person you are sending to looks quite hard to find it.

IMPORTANT Any replies that people send you will now be sent to this new email address. Obviously you should ensure that you type this correctly, and that you can already correctly receive email sent to this address.

If you haven't already done so, also make sure your Name and Organization fields are set sensibly (use your company name as the Organization). The "Reply address" defaults to the same as the "Email address" so you should leave that blank.

You may want to set up Outlook Express so that you can collect your work emails at home, or on a laptop whilst still being able to download them from your normal machine. You may require two people to collect the same emails from the same email box. By following these easy steps you will be able to collect emails from the same box on as many machines as you wish.

Using the PC that currently collects the mail. Open Outlook Express and go to Tools > Accounts.

You will be presented with the following screen:

Select the account you wish to collect the mail from, and select Properties. You will then need to select the Servers tab:

Make a note of the following information:

• The Incoming mail (POP3) entry - this is the address of the server that Outlook Express collects the mail from.
• The Outgoing mail (SMTP) entry - this is the address of the server that Outlook Express sends the mail to.
• The Account Name and Password. You cannot read the Password from this screen so you will need to look in the documentation you got from your ISP, or ask your IT administrator, if you don't know this.

Once you've got the above information select the advanced tab:

Select "Leave messages on the server". This will cause Outlook Express to take a download the email as usual but leave copies on the server instead of deleting them. It does remember which ones it has already collected so you won't receive multiple copies every time you collect.

By selecting "Remove from server after XXX days" and selecting a period that suits your needs you can ensure that the emails will eventually be deleted from the server. If you don't do this you will eventually run out of room in your mailbox at your ISP.

You can now create a new account on your other machine using the account details you made a note of earlier. Instructions on how to do this are here.