Microsoft Security Essentials is an antivirus/anti-malware/anti-spyware application. It is free and runs on the Windows operating systems XP, Vista and 7.

This review is not going to concentrate on how much stuff MSE can detect but rather boiled down to a simple question:

Does it get in your way?

I’ll explain that further.

Applications specifically designed to protect your computer will at times will annoy you. These annoyances come in the form of slowing the OS down, overzealous protection where it prompts for every single thing you could possibly think of (even worse than the UAC for Vista,) interrupting the normal operation of other programs that use the internet and so on.

It reasons like this that some people don’t even bother running protection software because it literally gets in the way of normal computer use.

Here’s the stuff that matters concerning MSE. I used my main desktop, which runs Windows 7 Home Premium, to test with.

Installation

Quick. Very quick. No long drawn-out installation procedures of any kind.

Virus/Spyware/Malware definitions first download

No faster than any other suite of this type would provide.

First scan of PC for viruses

This took a while. Once again it’s on par for the course with other protection suites.

Interface

You know it’s running by a green castle icon in the taskbar:

I do appreciate its obvious nature. Green means good and the checkmark further drives home that point.

Double-clicking the castle icon brings up the interface:

This is a very clean, very easy-to-use app. Big tabs show very clearly where you are at any time. Scan options on the right are also very easy.

One thing I particularly appreciate is how easy it is to tell MSE to avoid stuff. This is located on the Settings tab.

I can easily define what I don’t want MSE to scan. On my PC I specifically have it avoid the mail profile directory for Mozilla Thunderbird because the real-time protection was slowing it down a bit. I’ll speak more on that in a moment.

In the Advanced part of settings you also have a few very convenient options:

Telling MSE to not scan removable drives is a huge plus. For example, if you have a USB stick full of photos, there obviously aren’t going to be viruses present on that storage medium, so there’s no need to scan it when connected to your PC.

Real-time protection

This is something many people avoid using in a protection suite due to the fact it can slow down Windows to a crawl.

The way in which MSE uses real-time fortunately does not do this. When real-time is enabled, Windows for the most part will still operate as it did without it – and that’s a big plus.

What does "for the most part" mean? It means that in certain instances you will notice little pauses here and there. This is something all protection suites with real-time protection do. Those pauses are the little scans the suite is performing.

For example, I noticed it in Mozilla Thunderbird when I would move an email from one folder to another. It wasn’t a huge pause by any means, but I did notice it.

My way around this was to instruct MSE (as seen above) to not scan the Thunderbird mail profile directory. At that point the pausing went away instantly. Yes, it’s true, my email is not being scanned but I can easily manually scan attachments and other mails that would appear from not-so noble senders (read: spammers.)

Easy right-click access

Right-click any file anywhere and you can scan it, like this:

The castle icon you see here is blue instead of green, but it’s still very obvious what the menu choice does and the visual cue makes it easy to find at any time.

When you scan, the app pops up and tells you if it found anything:

Once again, green means good.

Other protection suites have similar functionality with the right-click context menu, but the difference here is speed. MSE is fast. No grinding of the hard drive waiting for the app to pop up. You right click, you scan, and ta-da, it’s right there.

The scan works on individual files or entire folders along with its subfolders.

Does it get in the way?

I can say with confidence that MSE does in fact stay out of your way while still providing excellent protection against viruses, malware and spyware – and in addition keeps the user in mind in the way it operates.

I like it enough that I intend to keep it installed – and that’s saying a lot because I’m a very anti-antivirus type of computer user due to the fact I normally can’t stand protection software suites. MSE does not slow down my PC, nor does it get in my way. And that’s good enough for me.

Is MSE better or worse than other protection suites?

MSE’s single largest advantage is that it’s a Microsoft product and therefore runs very happily with the Windows operating system. I don’t believe it will add in any additional level of protection that other suites don’t already cover – but it’s a pretty safe bet that it will probably run faster.

On a final note, no, this is not Windows Defender 2.0, and I can prove it:

Defender comes provided with Windows Vista and 7. MSE supersedes that software and is a very notable improvement all around. It is far superior and "smart" enough to turn Defender off on install so MSE can do the job it’s supposed to.

Does this mean you stop using Defender when using MSE? Yes.

This is not a review of Windows 7 the operating system, but rather www.windows7sins.org. I suggest reading thru that web site before reading this article. Some will agree with every point made on that site while others will say, "Um.. I don’t think so."

Here’s my two cents on each "sin".

1. Poisoning education

I disagree solely for the reason that Apple computers, which all run OS X, have a large presence in schools, colleges and universities.

You could argue that Apple equally "poisons" children just as bad as Microsoft does.

2. Invading privacy

I agree. I’ve never been comfortable with the fact you have to "activate" Windows and "validate" software just to use it.

3. Monopoly behavior.

I disagree. Large PC manufacturers, Dell included, have sincerely tried to get people to use alternative operating systems like Ubuntu. When netbooks (the hottest selling computer at the moment) first appeared, most of them came preinstalled with Linux. What happened? Returns aplenty. What happened when they started getting shipped with XP? Sales went thru the roof and continue to do so. That’s not monopolistic behavior on Microsoft’s part, that’s the market demanding what they want. It is painfully obvious just from return figures alone that people wanted Windows.

4. Lock-in

I agree and disagree.

Disagree: Windows 7 requires far less hardware requirements than Vista did. On YouTube there are even videos of people running 7 on Pentium III PCs. I’m not kidding. Doesn’t look like lock-in to me. On my own netbook, which is a 1.6GHz with only 1GB RAM, Windows 7 runs flawlessly. I’m using it right now to type this article on.

Agree: Windows does force updates if you have auto-update turned on, and it is aggravating when you leave the computer on overnight only to find it rebooted itself automatically from certain updates that came down the pike. Not cool.

5. Abusing standards

Agree. Microsoft does try consistently to make Word’s DOC the only format anybody would use. It is well known that the OpenDocument format is better, safer, easier and runs on any OS. Microsoft really needs to get with the times here and understand that proprietary software formats are a dumb idea. That time has long passed yet Microsoft clings to it viciously.

6. Enforcing Digital Restrictions Management (DRM).

Disagree. Microsoft would have happily left the Windows Media Player DRM-free but were essentially forced to do it by Big Media due to preexisting relationships. You will notice Microsoft didn’t lift a finger to enforce DRM until Big Media, such as NBC, specifically asked them to do it. Some would say, "Microsoft should have refused!" Should they have? And shoot themselves in the foot? I think it’s obvious why they agreed with NBC in the first place.

7. Threatening user security.

Agree – but to a point.

Nobody knew in the mid-1990s that the internet was going to take the world by storm. Then came in the tsunami of new computer users and it caught Microsoft completely off guard.

Why did Windows have the security of a wet napkin for so long? Mainly because prior to internet, Windows didn’t need any as a not-connected-to-internet PC.

Even in 2001 when XP was released, the internet was still an unsure bet back then.

Where I agree is that Windows had more holes than Swiss cheese for far too long. The stretch between XP and Vista/7 was far too long. The stretch between IE 6 and 7/8 was far too long. Only now, finally, in 7 do we have a Windows OS that is at least on par with other major offerings.

I know there will be those that vehemently disagree with me on this point, and if that’s the case, so be it. Win 7 is the most secure Windows to date. In some instances it’s even safer than a Mac. But the jury is still out on that one because we’ll see what really happens when Win 7 is officially released in October ‘09 and how it stacks up to Apple’s latest Snow Leopard.

The true threat as far as I’m concerned comes from OS activation and WGA. I see that as an invasion of privacy as noted in point 2 above. I find it absolutely disgusting that Windows requires "activation" just to work after a set number of days. It is absolutely wrong that the OS takes inventory of what you have installed and sends it to other places (Microsoft) thru this validation process.

Windows may even come to a point where it’s required for it to be connected to the internet just to work. At present that’s not necessary. If you have to, you can still mail in a registration card (which is almost just as bad). But if it happens that all future Windows OSes are "internet required just to work".. I don’t even want to think about it.

What do you think?

Is Windows7Sins.org correct with all points? Some? None? Voice your opinion.

No, this does not mean that Yahoo! the site is going away. Far from it. It means that Y! has officially offloaded it to Microsoft.

Yahoo! has made it very clear these days (and their CEO even said so) that they are not a search company, so now Y! is all about content.

This is part of the reason why Y! has been making major changes over the past few years – mostly in the form of cutting the chaff from the wheat, so to speak. Yahoo! 360 is gone, Geocities will be gone in October, Yahoo! Live the short-lived broadcasting service (like Ustream/BlogTV/etc.) closed in ‘08, Jumpcut, another Y! property, is gone, and so on. And there are plenty more.

Y! has been dropping a whole lot of hammers, no question. They want to concentrate on things that will make them grow as a company, and search is definitely not one of them.

At this point I personally do not have faith in the Y! brand due to the fact they can’t seem to find a winner with anything new they produce. And instead of taking their existing services and improving upon them, they get dropped instead. For those of us that actually used those services, we as the users get screwed in the end because any effort we put into using it was for nothing. This is not exactly what we’d call a confidence booster in the Y! brand.

There are seven things from Y! that I know people use, that being mail, messenger, games, Flickr, maps, personals and answers – all of which have tenure. None of this stuff is new. In fact most of it is ancient, internet-wise.

Do you know anybody that uses OMG? Or real estate? Or Shine? Or Buzz? Or Green? If you said, "No, and um.. I’ve never heard of those Y! services", that wouldn’t surprise me a bit. The problem is that this new stuff is what Y! wants you to use. But the sad part is that had you not read it here, you most likely didn’t know they existed.

In comparison, when Google offers a new service, they let you know about it. The same is true for Microsoft. When something new comes around in the Windows Live system, you’re informed. Both these companies put a good effort into letting the masses know of the good/cool/interesting things they make. But as for Yahoo? Not so much. That’s a problem and hopefully one they will fix.

Is Yahoo’s decision to offload the search to Microsoft a good thing, or is this the beginning (or the continuation) of the end for Yahoo?

If you’ve bought enough computers over the years, chances are you’ve had at least a few of them that dropped in value so fast it made your head spin.

Before listing the worst, the best concerning resale value has always been laptops. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Lenovo, Macbook, Dell Inspiron or what-have-you. The laptop will always retain higher value than the desktop PC will. Note however that this is for standard sized laptops and not the smaller netbook format.

The worst concerning resale value however isn’t the desktop computer – although I bet you thought it was.

It’s the gaming console. And yes, that is a computer.

There’s not much that shoots down in value faster in value than gaming consoles and the games themselves that play on them.

To put this in perspective:

You buy a video game system for $250. What’s it worth in six months? About $100. If you can sell it for more, consider yourself lucky you found a sucker to buy it.

That game you bought new for $50? In six months it’s worth $15.

It is routine that gaming consoles and the games will lose 50% or greater (usually greater) of their value in six months or less.

OUCH.

Even cell phones don’t drop in value that fast.

What’s the best way to sell off a used console gaming system?

If it’s in warranty, that’s a huge, huge plus. Mention it in your listing on eBay or craigslist and mention it LOUDLY. This gives the buyer confidence that if the system busts it can at least be fixed for free.

If it’s not in warranty, well.. bundle as many games as you can and take what you can get. But don’t be surprised if what you get is less than half of what you paid for it.

New software from Microsoft, Hohm, is a free web-based tool that you can use calculate how to save on energy costs in your own home.

Defined:

Microsoft Hohm is a free web based application (running on the Windows Azure platform) that enables consumers to better understand their energy usage by utilizing advanced analytics licensed from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy to provide home owners with personalized energy-saving recommendations.

See this video for a better explanation (warning: it’s 23 minutes long but worth the watch).

This is good stuff, especially if you’re looking to cut energy costs.

Microsoft has just announced some beta anti-virus/spyware/malware protection software called Microsoft Essentials. It’s free and free is good.

This software is only available to people running a legal copy of Windows. This is fine. My copies of XP are all legal as is my Windows 7.

After jumping thru several hoops trying to download this thing, I sign in with my Windows Live ID (required), fill out a registration form (required), validate my email address (required), and THEN…

The red box says:

The invitation you are using belongs to another registered account. If you believe you received this message in error, please try using another Windows Live ID/Passport account or contact mchelp@microsoft.com for additional assistance.

What?

Geez, thanks Microsoft. Now I can’t even try your software.

So if you want to try out Microsoft Essentials, if you can get past the registration process, you did better than me.

Bing is the new search engine web site from Microsoft. This is their attempt to put their name on the map concerning internet search, or said differently, Microsoft is trying to compete with Google. Again. Bing is the replacement for Live Search.

You can try it right now if you like. Just go to www.bing.com. Or, if you’d prefer a tour first, that’s here: http://www.discoverbing.com/tour/. Or, you can watch a video on the "decision engine".

What makes Bing different?

Two things: Organization and related results.

Example: A search for "tampa".

Using Google

Using Bing

Note the stuff on the left.

Weather, real estate, map, hotels, attractions, images. Bam.

Related searches. Not advertisements. "Things to do in Tampa", "City of Tampa", "Tampa Aquarium", "Tampa Tribune", "Tampa Jobs". Bam.

Search history below that. Bam. It’s all there in plain view.

Does Google have any of this? In fact it does, but it’s hidden. You have to click "Show options…" to get it, and then drill down even further for related searches. That’s inconvenient when Bing brings it all to you up front – without clutter or extra clicks.

The organization and related stuff in clear plain view on first result page is a big deal. It’s decidedly convenient. It also looks better and is easier to use.

With Bing, what that engine is trying to do (and does successfully do it) is not just give you results for what you search, but results that matter. It is an attempt to make search results more relevant to what you want to find. This is part of the "decision engine" they speak of.

There’s a lot more to Bing, but that covers the basics. I do in fact like using it because of the sidebar results. It is very convenient.

And yes I know there will be tons of people that say, "No way. I like Google." Well, that’s the same thing people said about Yahoo before Google, and look what happened. Am I saying Bing will overtake Google in market share? No. But it does put up a darn good alternative against the big G. Finally.

The fact Microsoft is offering Windows 7 free for an entire year to anybody who wants it is definitely a change for the better. It used to be that whenever any software maker released a product, they would do so, wait for the mountain of complaints to come in, then provide fixes. Concerning operating systems, that’s typically how commercial releases worked for many years.

It is impossible to release an OS that is bug-free. But with Windows 7 I can honestly say that when official, this will probably be the least bug-laden version of the OS ever put to market. And a huge reason for that is because people like myself and many others who are running Windows 7 RC are providing valuable information to Microsoft by using the OS, talking about it, describing what works, what doesn’t and so on.

Linux users have been doing this for years, so the idea of letting the users give feedback before official release is nothing new. It is the strength of the Linux community that contributes largely to a Linux distribution’s rock-solid reliability. When there’s a problem even to the slightest degree, it’s reported, discussed openly (keyword there) and addressed.

Finally, after all this time, Microsoft is now following suit and taking advantage of the power of the internet community. This is a very large step in the right direction because it gives the home user a much louder voice than before.

The voice of the consumer was largely overshadowed by corporations up until this point. Why? Because corporations spend the most money on Microsoft products. Am I saying that the consumer is now on an even playing field with corporate? No. But we are being listened to more, and that’s better than nothing.

Microsoft will never be at the level of user empowerment that Linux is. Of that I have no doubt. Linux, being largely non-commercial, has the advantage of having the user as its loudest voice first and always. When you’re commercial, the user is shunted to dead last as far as "this is who we listen to concerning issues", and I don’t deny that.

However, in all my years of using Windows this is the first time I’ve really seen Microsoft actually pay very close attention to its consumer base and make it well known that it is.

As said above, this is a huge step in the right direction because it makes for a much better end product.

Microsoft Office will have a 64-bit edition for version 2010. This is a big deal because that’s Microsoft flagship product. More on that in a moment.

At this point in the desktop computing world, we’ve easily reached the limits of what 32-bit processing can do. No matter what OS you’re running, there really isn’t any more we can squeeze out of it. In the past it was CPU clock speeds that people wanted. We have that now. Then it was how many cores we can stuff into a CPU. We’ve got that too (and more are coming). The only bottleneck left is the 4GB RAM limitation of the 32-bit architecture. And the only way to rid that is to go 64-bit.

Why is the industry hanging on to 32-bit? Why do large PC makers continue to promote and sell 32-bit systems when 64-bit is just as affordable?

It’s because of the lack of native 64-bit applications.

Being that Microsoft will have a native 64-bit edition of MS Office, this now gives people a reason to go 64-bit – but it’s not like others haven’t tried. A good example is the game Half-Life 2 from Valve. That’s had a 64-bit edition since 2005(!), but even that couldn’t sway gamers over to 64-bit, and those people are some of the most diehard bleeding-edge PC hardware geeks you’ll find.

Will Microsoft lead the charge into the 64-bit world? They might. It may be the killer app that finally puts 32-bit to rest, both in enterprise and in the home.

However, there are two factors in play here that may keep 32-bit around for a while yet.

Future OSes will be smaller and faster

OS-makers have realized that there’s too much bloat. This counts for Windows and Linux.

Windows 7 will be decidedly slimmer compared to Vista. Vista in its present state isn’t just fat. It’s obese.

A good portion of the Linux community is screaming to tone down the sizes of the distros, citing that any distro over a CD’s size (roughly 700MB) is a waste of material. And they’re right. You may notice that DVD-sized distros don’t command nearly as much attention as the CD-sized and smaller ones do.

Smaller, faster OSes mean there isn’t a legitimate need for 64-bit. Instead, 32-bit will work fine if the OS is "tuned" properly to suit so it doesn’t require gobs and gobs of RAM.

The internet is the killer app

The internet itself is probably the "app" you use most.

Ask yourself: What app do you use more than your web browser?

The internet if treated as an app does not require any advantage 64-bit would bring. Whether you have 2GB of RAM now with a 32-bit system or 8GB with a 64-bit setup, the internet still runs the same.

What’s your say?

Will the fact MS Office will have 64-bit finally start to phase out 32-bit systems?

Is 64-bit even needed when the internet is what we use most?

Should the question be rephrased, Does 64-bit have a future?

Let us know in the comments.

Encarta is Microsoft’s electronic encyclopedia product. It’s getting the axe and will be discontinued this year. For those that remember it, you most likely used it in its offline form on CDs.

Encarta is also an online product. But obviously it cannot compare to sites like Wikipedia and the internet in general as an online research tool, which is one of the reasons for its cancellation.

Most people remember Encarta in its offline form on CD. I remember using it years ago but wholly admit that it absolutely cannot compete to the way we search for information now.

The good thing about Microsoft Encarta is that in its software form it is completely immune to online vandalism, whereas Wikipedia isn’t.

You might want to consider purchasing Encarta while you still can. It’s cheap, complete and would be good to add to your software collection.

Over the weekend I had a discussion with a friend who has recently switched to Mac, and he brought up an unbelievably good – and I mean good – point. I’ll get to it in a moment.

The friend I speak of is a Mac convert. He switched over, is very happy about it and has nothing but nice things to say about Apple. Granted, there are a few things he doesn’t like, but overall he’s satisfied with the way his Apple boxes work.

He knows that Microsoft is a software company and Apple is an OEM (something many Mac vs. PC debaters always forget). The super-good point he made is this:

"I have only one product made by Microsoft in my house, and it’s an Xbox 360. If Microsoft built a PC as good as the 360 like Apple builds a Mac, it would be the best PC made."

And he’s right.

Microsoft’s "PC" is the Xbox. It runs like a top. Gamers of all ages love it. Microsoft controls every bit of hardware and software that goes into it. It’s ultra-proprietary being that it’s a gaming console. And the fact it’s proprietary in and out is a huge reason why it runs so well – just like a Mac.

It should be noted that many Mac fans do own an Xbox. These people who positively can’t stand PCs will applaud the Xbox for working properly just like their Macs do; it is the single product made by Microsoft they don’t complain about.

I had to sit back and realize that yes, being proprietary does have its advantages, with the main ones being stability and reliability.

With Xbox, you pop in a game, turn it on and go. Simple as that. No fuss, no muss. It just works (and doesn’t that phrase sound familiar?) It’s networking also works without any hitches to speak of.

When you’re the OEM and control both the hardware and software, the box does what it’s supposed to do. There are no questions involved, such as, "Do I need a driver for this?" or the like. Everything is ready to run. When you’re not the OEM, yes, the box will crash. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but it will do it.

If Microsoft did actually manufacture a PC, and it was as good as the Xbox is, and it was priced right, they’d probably put Dell out of business.

Fervent Mac users are quick to say, "You get what you pay for" to justify the price of owning an Apple Macintosh computer or portable Macbook computer.

Laptops are outselling desktops like crazy right now and have been for some time – and this counts for Apple as well. Their desktop line, like all other computer manufacturers, have taken a huge hit sales-wise.

In the "get what you pay for" realm, with the Macbook line the one thing you don’t get for the money is screen size – and that matters. For many people that’s the make-or-break decision on whether to buy a laptop or not.

If you want anything over a 13-inch screen on a new Macbook, it will cost you over $1000, period.

Microsoft has capitalized on this:

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:0bb6a07c-c829-4562-8375-49e6693810c7&amp;showPlaylist=true&amp;from=msnvideo" target="_new" title="Laptop Hunters $1000 – Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion">Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 – Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion</a>

BUT… and this is a big BUT…

A 17-inch screen on a laptop is just too frickin’ big for most people. Yes, the display is nice, but it’s when carrying it around that it proves to be quite cumbersome.

The be-all/end-all perfect laptop screen sizes are 14-inch normal aspect and 15-inch widescreen. There has not been a size before or since that matches up for more people’s eyes better. It’s also more portable and lighter.

Those laptops can be had for under $400 new.

That’s less than half the price of a 13-inch Macbook. Now that’s a deal.

For the Mac fans that would say, "I don’t care, it’s still got crappy Windows on it", shaddup. It’s $600 less, the screen is a full two inches larger and if I don’t feel like using Windows I can put Ubuntu on it.

The best line from the commercial above is, "I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person."

In today’s economy, nobody wants to be "cool". If to be "cool" you must shell out $1000 for a Macbook with a 13-inch screen while other makes are larger and less than half the price, you can take your "cool" and shove it.

More people these days are getting away from instant messenger programs and using the in-browser way, because there really isn’t too much reason to use an IM app these days. Years ago a large chunk of the IM functionality was provided by the application, but that’s not the case anymore. You can do voice, webcam, manage your buddy/contact list and just about everything else right from the browser.

With web-based IM you have from-service and multi-protocol.

Multi-Protocol

The one most people know is Meebo. It has a fantastic interface and is super-easy to set up and use. However there’s also eBuddy,ILoveIM, IMhaha, IMUnitive, KoolIM, mabber, MSN2Go, radiusIM and Wablet.

Needless to say you’ve got a lot of choice.

Do you have a review of one of the above? Leave a comment. I haven’t had the time to test all the above, so if you’ve got a few moments to spare, let us know what you think of one or more of the above.

From-Service

These are web-based versions of IM from the service providers themselves.

Yahoo: http://webmessenger.yahoo.com/
Windows Live: http://messidog.live.com or http://webmessenger.msn.com
AIM: http://www.aim.com/aimexpress.adp

Here are the rating from best to worst:

Best: AIM

AIM has updated their web interface and said honestly it’s the best there is. Flash-based, smooth animations, no weirdness with extraneous pop-ups (other than just one for the IM window itself), in-window tabbed conversations, familiar friendly sounds – this one has got the works. If you use AIM you will take to this like a fish to water.

Good: Yahoo

This looks very similar to the Yahoo Messenger app itself. However the problem is that it takes up the whole browser and I could not find any way to "detach" the IM. But other than that this is a solid performer. It has tabs, very friendly interface and a simple clean design. If you use Yahoo Messenger you’ll definitely want to try this.

Worst: Windows Live

Where Microsoft excels with it’s Windows Live Messenger client, their web messenger is a joke. It’s absolutely awful. The "messidog" address almost never works. You’ll get "An error has occurred" and be left flat on attempt to login.

The other address does work, but the interface looks like MSN Messenger 7. That’s bad. Bear in mind the current client is version 2009 (version 9). It’s also plagued with pop-up warnings left and right. This is a web messenger designed for 2002, not 2009. I have no idea why Microsoft keeps such a horrible web IM around like this. They’ve made such a huge effort to make all the Live services better and more friendly but haven’t touched the IM portion whatsoever. Very strange.

You’re far better off just using one of the multi-protocol services above.

What’s your take? App or Web?

Have IM web apps come far enough to make you give up your IM client or are there specific features that keep you "local", so to speak? Let us know.

Microsoft released Windows Internet Explorer 8 today at 12 noon EST. I downloaded, checked it out and here’s what I have to report.

First I’ll say that I’m not going to rehash what’s going to be on hundreds of other blogs out there. I’m only going to concentrate of the nitty-gritty of what matters to most people in question-and-answer style.

Q: Does it work with Microsoft Update?

A: Yes. In all honesty this is the one thing that kept me from running IE 8 betas and RCs. It was well known that the update was "broken" with the pre-release versions, hence why I absolutely would not use it.

The official release of IE 8 does and does so well. And faster.

Above: This is what I like to see. IE 8 working just fine with Microsoft Update, the way it should.

Q: Is it faster than IE 7?

A: Yes. You will immediately notice that the tabs launch and close much quicker, pages render faster and overall performance is better.

Q: Can you move the buttons on the right to the left?

A: Yes.

Right-click, if "Lock The Toolbars" is checked, click to uncheck. Then drag it wherever you want.

Check this out:

Above: Large icons selected, icons on the left. It’s a thing of beauty.

Q: Is there a "porn" mode?

A: Yes. This is called "going incognito" in Google Chrome and in IE 8 it’s called "InPrivate". Open up a new tab and select "Browse with InPrivate", like this:

You get a new window with this:

This is jokingly called "porn mode" for any browser that offers this, and now IE 8 has it. Yes, it’s a good feature. I particularly recommend it for any web site that has to do with your money, such as banking web sites.

Firefox officially has to play catch-up now. Google Chrome and IE 8 have the edge with this feature. I’m sure with FF 3.1 it will be there. Watch for it.

Q: Should you get it?

A: Yes. IE 8 beats the crap out of IE 7. It’s leaner, faster and just plain better. This is a no-brainer upgrade. Get it. Even if you don’t use IE, if you use a Windows operating system, get it for better/faster update capability.

The PCMech Premium members have read (and seen in video) in great detail the lengths I go to to instruct how to archive email, be it POP, IMAP, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail and so on.

This article however is a freebie because it involves now-ancient mail data formats and how to convert them to modern format. And I know there are some poor souls out there still using these format types, so hopefully after reading this they will upgrade to something better like Mozilla Thunderbird, Windows Live Mail or a current version of Microsoft Outlook.

And if you hate email clients, once you pull mail into a client you can push it over to Gmail (IMAP/any modern mail client) or Hotmail (DeltaSync/Windows Live Mail) afterwards.

The two ancient formats I will speak of are Eudora and pre-2003 Microsoft Outlook PST archives. Very recently I discovered I had email archives on CD dating all the way back to 2001 which used these two formats. I wrote about this on my personal site, so I can speak first hand on how the conversions work.

Eudora to Thunderbird

Believe it or not there are those who still use Eudora and absolutely positively refuse to give it up (much like Microsoft Outlook users). They are affectionately called "Eudorka" users.

Eudora has an interesting way of storing mail, because if any mail contains a file attachment it is not stored within the individual emails themselves but rather a separate directory called "attach". This is not as odd as you would think because computers back then were slower, and separating the attachments from the mail itself actually worked better as it took less system resource. This is part of the reason Eudorka people love the client so much.

The easy way

Use Mozilla Thunderbird. It has built-in import support for Eudora import. However it will not grab the file attachments. Not with Eudora 5.1, anyway.

The hard way

On a Mac: Eudora Mailbox Cleaner

On Windows: Eudora Rescue

Both of these will convert to a more modern mbox format that Thunderbird can import easily including all the file attachments. But neither are easy to use. Works, yes, but not easy.

Microsoft Outlook PST to Windows Live Mail

The deal with Outlook PST files is that the pre-2003 Outlook client has a maximum allowed PST size of 2GB. Those who have worked in tech support long enough are quite familiar with the Inbox Repair Tool, a.k.a. scanpst.exe to fix/repair the stupid thing whenever it reaches its cap.

Outlook 2003 to present version on the other hand has a 33TB PST file size limit using the modern unicode format. Huge difference. There is no automatic way to convert an old PST to the current unicode one. But you can perform an import. More on that in a moment.

The easy way

Assuming you’re using Windows XP, if you already have Outlook 97 to 2000 installed (why you’re using something that old I have no idea), have Outlook Express 6 import all your mail. Go into Outlook Express, click File, Import, Messages, select Microsoft Outlook and it’s a done deal.

After that, run Windows Live Mail and click File, Import, Messages and pull in all your mail from Outlook Express 6. Works like a charm. After that, go back to OE6 and delete all the mail out of there since you’ll be using WLmail.

The hard way

Buy a new copy of Outlook, perform an import from the old PST to a new unicode version which the current Outlook creates by default. Remember, there is no automatic conversion from old-to-new PST. You must import from the old to the new manually. I label this as the hard way because you have to flip out cash to do it. Otherwise it’s easy.

Q: Can you convert a Microsoft Outlook pre-2003 PST without Outlook?

A: No. It’s a protected format by Microsoft. There is no known utility (none that I know of anyway) that will convert a PST without having Outlook physically installed. You absolutely must do it the Outlook way.

This, by the way, is a huge reason I am very anti-Outlook. I have never liked the fact that everything you do in a local Outlook database is one big honkin’ proprietary file that cannot be worked with unless you specifically have the Outlook client installed.

Should you fear that the email client you upgrade to will become obsolete?

All software inevitably becomes obsolete. What you have to do is use software that is continually developed with newer versions over time that you either upgrade to for free or purchase when needed.

If you use Microsoft Outlook, yes you will have to buy a new version of it every few years and there’s no way around that. And as long as Microsoft exists and people store data locally, there will be Outlook. It will be around a long, long time.

If you use a free mail client, you will have to periodically download and install an upgrade it when new versions are released. Mozilla Thunderbird/SeaMonkey is actively developed, as is Apple Mail and Opera’s built-in mail client. Ones that have active development and widespread use will stick around for a long time.

Is the email client on the deathbed?

No. Not by a long shot. The day we have no more email client programs is the day we have flying cars. Just stick with a current version of an email client and you’ll be a-okay.

To you Eudorkas out there, don’t go with Penelope. For the love of creamed corn and Christmas, use Thunderbird.