Many people have been disappointed to discover that Windows Mail is not included in Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system. In it's place is a new email program called Windows Live Mail that's earned its fair share of scorn. Windows Live Mail does have nearly the same feature set as Windows Mail, except for a few crucial areas which seem to be deal breakers.

In Windows Live Mail; 1) Email accounts are listed separately in the left column instead of combined into a single Inbox. With multiple email accounts this can get messy, fast. 2) Importing email from other mail programs can be more difficult. 3) Seamless integration with online Windows Live Messenger puts people off. 4) The user interface for Windows Live Mail is different enough from Windows Mail to leave many unhappy about the change.

Faced with this, many readers using Windows 7 for the first time have asked PCSTATS how they can go back to the familiar format and capabilities of Windows Mail. Microsoft has removed that choice, and officially your only option is to install Office 2007 or find a new third party email program to learn from scratch.

Luckily there is a way to bring Windows Mail back from the dead. In this Tech Tip PCSTATS will show you how to make Windows Mail work in a Windows 7. Experience with Windows Command Prompt would be helpful, see this Guide if you need a refresher.

Here's how: First make sure you have Administrator privileges, then right-click on 'Start' and open Windows Explorer > from the top menu bar select 'Tools' > Folder Options > View > enable 'Show hidden files, folders and drives', uncheck 'hide extensions for known file types' and uncheck 'hide protected operating system files'. Click Ok.

Click on 'Start' and type "CMD" into where it says 'search programs and files' to bring up the Command Prompt window. Navigate to the Windows Mail folder by typing: "cd c:\program files\windows mail" (just the bit between the quotes) and hitting the 'Enter' key to execute the command.

Next we need to take ownership of the msoe.dll file which is located in the Windows Mail folder by typing: "takeown /F msoe.dll"
The computer should respond with this message: SUCCESS: The file (or folder): "C:\Program Files\Windows Mail\msoe.dll" now owned by user "USERNAME-PC\USERNAME"

After that's done, assign full control permissions to the administrator group for this file by typing: "ICACLS msoe.dll /grant administrators:F"
You now have full ownership of this file and can rename it. Let's do that.
While still in the Command Prompt window type: "rename msoe.dll msoe.dl_" (We're renaming the original file to essentially back it up and put it out of reach of Windows 7.)

Next you'll need to copy the 'msoe.dll' file from a computer installed with Windows Vista onto a USB drive. This file is stored in the C:\Program Files\Windows Mail folder in Vista. If your Win7 PC is 64-bit, copy the file from a Vista 64-bit system.

Paste the Vista msoe.dll file from the USB drive into the Windows 7 PC c:\Program Files\Windows Mail folder, then right click on 'WinMail.exe' and select "Send to > Desktop (create short cut)." That's it, you should now have a fully operational version of Windows Mail running in Windows 7! Best of all, Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail can be run concurrently so you can use either email program you wish.

Note that future Microsoft patches may cause Windows Mail to become unavailable once more. If that happens you will need to reinstate the Vista msoe.dll file into the Windows 7 folder to regain full use of Windows Mail under Windows 7.

Post your comments or questions to this thread in the PCSTATS Forums. Let PCSTATS know what you think of this Tech Tip.