I’m basically a Redmond loyalist, so I can probably help shed some light on this.

1.) Add Ons: Mapi Lab has more add-ons for Outlook and Outlook Express than you can shake a stick at. You can check them out at http://www.mapilab.com/. (I am in no way affiliated with Mapi Lab). Some of my favorite add-ons they ofer include Quick Templates for Outlook, and Attachment Management. There’s lots of Outlook Goodness, and the MapiLab toolbox contains 18 add-ons for $24.

2.) I think one of the most powerful email platforms for Windows is Outlook Live. It allows synchronization over multiple devices and applications (Outlook, Web Mail, PDA or Smartphone). It’s available for a resonable $49.95 a month.

3.) Lookout for Outlook, or Windows Desktop Search. Both applications offer snazzy searching within Outlook. I used to go for Lookout, but now I stick with Windows Desktop Search. It allows you to save search queries within Outlook (think Smart Folders).

I’ve got some new posts regarding Outlook use up my sleeve, but in the meantime, you can browse the following (Note: these links are to posts that I’ve written on my own blog): Handling My Email Contacts and Calendar My Current Email Solution: Outlook Live

I live in Outlook day in and day out. I’d be happy to be a guinea pig, or provide some feedback for anything related to your article.

When on Windows, I still use Thunderbird, with all of the same extensions & tricks that I have available to me under Linux and OS X.

The only reason to maybe use Outlook would be if you had to retrieve mail from an Exchange server.

By “Windows email” do you mean “Outlook” or “Outlook/Outlook Express” or “any email client which runs on Windows?”

I converted to Mac years ago but the ony thing I really miss is the PC only email client and newsreader Forte Agent - http://www.forteinc.com/

Will you also be doing Linux tips section, or just Mac/Windows?

My fu is the fu of the Firefox.

Oh, and gmail.

What is this nasty outlook thing so many people speak of?

Re: David Brunelle’s post, just a small typo: Outlook Live is $49.95 per year, not per month.

The first thing I do when sitting down at an XP box is to remove all of the Fisher-Price My First OS stuff and set all of the preferences back to ‘Windows Classic’.

The second thing I do is install VirtuaWin ( http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/ ), because I can’t do real work without more than one screen’s worth of real estate. A window manager that spans more than one screen is something that *nixes have had for twenty years now - why can’t Microsoft get this one right?

Put me down as another happy Lookout user. I have been using the GTD outlook plugin available from David Allen’s web site for two years now and it is been a big help for me to keep down to Inbox Zero. Outlook sure takes a longggg time to open to process all of my inbox rules and the GTD plugin. The Using Outlook for GTD pdf from David is worth the $10 if you don’t want to pop for the Plugin.

Thunderbird would be great, but all of us Corporate warrors have to use the tools given. I just feel luckly that I am able to install Lookout and the Plugin.

I really love the Copernic desktop search to find text within (or attachments to) my Outlook e-mails, which is free (copernic.com) and can sit with a little searchbox in a little spot in your windows toolbar. It is a million times better than the crummy search function built into Outlook. It’s also very fast.