------------------------------------------------------------ README for Microsoft Internet Mail and News December l996 ------------------------------------------------------------ (c) Copyright Microsoft Corporation, 1996 This document provides complementary or late-breaking information to supplement the documentation. ------------------------ HOW TO USE THIS DOCUMENT ------------------------ To view Mailnews.txt on screen in Notepad, maximize the Notepad window. To print Mailnews.txt, open it in Notepad or another word processor, then use the Print command on the File menu. CONTENTS ======== MICROSOFT INTERNET MAIL MICROSOFT INTERNET NEWS KNOWN ISSUES IN THIS RELEASE TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS AND TRICKS SUPPORT FOR MICROSOFT INTERNET MAIL AND NEWS MICROSOFT INTERNET MAIL ======================= Internet Mail is a new e-mail program designed specifically for the Internet. At this time, you cannot use Microsoft Internet Mail to access your e-mail account with any of the following services: MS Mail, cc:Mail, The Microsoft Network (MSN), CompuServe, America OnLine (AOL), and Microsoft Exchange Server. If you don't know whether your system uses these services, contact your administrator or your Internet service provider and ask if they support SMTP/POP3 mail clients. MICROSOFT INTERNET NEWS ======================= Microsoft Internet News enables you to read bulletin-board discussion groups, such as the Usenet, using NNTP-based news servers. Contact your Internet service provider for the name of the news server that you should use. This product can also be used for support on a variety of Microsoft products on the news server msnews.microsoft.com. KNOWN ISSUES IN THIS RELEASE ============================ For the latest information about known issues, see our Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/iesupport/inetmail/contents/issues/imnissue.htm. - In order to send e-mail to someone who is not in your Address Book, you must enter a recognizable Internet e-mail address (that is, user@server). - If you select a thread and then choose Expand from the View menu, only the first level of the thread is expanded. To expand the whole thread, click the News menu, and then click Options. Click the Read tab, and then select the Auto Expand Conversation Threads check box. - Some mail programs incorrectly send messages with tags indicating that they use Western European languages when the messages actually use non-Western European characters. As a result, these messages might appear garbled in Internet Mail and News. To work around this problem, click the View menu, point to Language, and then choose the appropriate language. If you want to reply to or forward such a message, first open the message by clicking File and then clicking Open. Change the language of the message by clicking the View menu, pointing to Language, and then selecting the correct language. Then reply to or forward the message. - Internet News requires that your news server support the XOVER command. If your news server does not support the XOVER command, you will get an error message indicating that XOVER is required in order to retrieve messages in a newsgroup. Support for news servers that don't use the XOVER command will be added in a future release of Internet News. TROUBLESHOOTING =============== - If you run into a problem, try the troubleshooters in online Help. To start the troubleshooters, carry out the following steps: 1. In Internet Mail or News, click the Help menu. 2. Look up "Troubleshooting" in the Help Index. - Check your connection to your Internet service provider. - If you are unable to send or receive mail, check the following: - The TCP/IP protocol is installed on your computer. - All cables are properly connected to your computer, modem, or LAN. - You have a PPP or SLIP account with your Internet Provider. - Your Internet Provider or LAN server supports POP3 and SMTP. - Your modem communication parameters (baud rate and type of protocol) are set correctly. - Make sure that you use an account name and password for a news server only if it requires them. If you use an account name and password and they are not required, you will not be able to connect to the news server. - To access the Microsoft peer product support newsgroups, carry out the following steps: 1. Click the News menu, and then click Options. 2. Click the Server tab, and then click Add. 3. Type msnews.microsoft.com as the name of the server. If that name isn't found by your Internet Service Provider, you can enter 131.107.3.27 instead. You do not need to enter an account name or password. - If your mail server times out while you are sending mail, you might get an error message indicating that a recipient is unknown. If this happens, you should increase the timeout for your server. To do this, carry out the following steps: 1. Click the Mail menu, and then click Options. 2. Click the Server tab, and then click Advanced Settings. 3. Drag the slider to increase the timeout for your server. TIPS AND TRICKS =============== - To rename a folder, create a new folder with the name you want, move the messages you want into the new folder, and then delete the old folder. - You can change the sound that notifies you that you have received new mail. To do this, open Control Panel, and then double-click the Sounds icon. - You can move the toolbar by right-clicking on it and then choosing Align/Left or Align/Top. To customize the toolbar, right-click on it, and then click Customize Toolbar. - You can resize the preview pane or the message list by dragging the divider between the preview pane and the message list. - You can change how the preview pane splits, or turn it off entirely by changing the options under Preview Pane on the View menu. - You can specify that you want to see only unread News messages. To do this, click the View menu, and then click Unread Messages Only. - You can set messages to automatically download to the preview pane by clicking the News menu, clicking options, clicking the Read tab, then selecting the Automatically Show Messages in the Preview Pane check box. - To view the e-mail address of someone who has sent you a message, double-click the message to open it, then double-click the author's name in the From field. You can also add this person to your Address Book by right-clicking the name, and then clicking Add To Address Book. - To view responses to a particular message in a newsgroup, click the plus sign (+) next to the message. The responses appear indented below it. - You should use HTML formatting to send messages only to recipients who have e-mail software that can display HTML. Otherwise, send messages as plain text, which is the default. - In Internet Mail, you can leave a copy of your messages on the server. To set this option, click the Mail menu, and then click Options. Click the Server tab, click Advanced Settings and select the Leave a copy of messages on server check box. - In Internet News, you can search for newsgroups that contain several keywords. To do this, click the News menu, and then click Newgroups. In the Search box, enter the keywords separated by a space. You can also search newsgroup descriptions. If you cannot see the descriptions, click the News menu, click Options, and then click the Server tab. Click a news server, click Properties, click the Advanced tab, and then select the Use Newsgroup Descriptions check box. - You can have your signature added to all messages, including those that you reply to or forward. To do this, click the Mail menu, and then click Options. On the Signature tab, select the following check box: Add Signature To The End Of All Outgoing Messages. - To switch to your Inbox, you can press CTRL+I. - To reorder columns, you can drag and drop column headings. - To save an attachment with a message from the preview pane, click the paper clip icon, and then hold down the CTRL key while you click the file you want to save. The Save As dialog box appears. - You can view all the headers for a news message. To do this, double-click the message to open it in a separate window, click the View menu, and then click Full Headers. - If you are running Internet Mail and News on Windows NT and you need to add support for a different language, double-click the Keyboard icon in Control Panel, and then click Add. Follow the instructions on your screen. This installs the appropriate NLS (National Language Support) files. You do not have to use the associated keyboard layout. - To send or receive messages in PanEuropean languages, choose between one of these character sets: CE/Baltic/Greek/Turkish (ISO) or CE/Baltic/Greek/Turkish (Windows). - To send or receive messages in Russian, use Cyrillic (Windows). To send messages in other Cyrillic languages (Ukrainian, Belorussian, Bulgarian), you can use either Cyrillic (KOI8-R) or Cyrillic (Windows; however, to reply, you should use the character set that was used in the original message. - If Internet Mail and News is unable to determine the language of an incoming message, the language defaults to the one selected in the Language list. To open the Language list, click the View menu, and then point to Language. SUPPORT FOR MICROSOFT INTERNET MAIL AND NEWS ============================================ Support for Microsoft Internet Mail and News is provided directly by Microsoft support engineers through standard phone lines. Phone support from within the United States is available via a toll call by dialing the following number between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. PST, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. - In the U.S., call (206) 635-7123 for Internet Mail and News support Phone support is also available for Canadian residents via a toll call by dialing the following number between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. - In Canada, call (905) 568-4494 for Internet Mail and News support. Note: If Internet Mail and News was pre-installed or distributed with your PC or provided by an Internet Service Provider, the PC manufacturer or the Internet Service Provider is responsible for providing your product support. Microsoft's fee-based Priority Support or Information Services are available regardless of how you obtained Internet Explorer. Support is available for 90 days after your first call to a Microsoft support engineer. However, you are still required to pay for any toll charges incurred. Internet newsgroup support is also being provided indirectly through Microsoft's news server. The following two newsgroups are dedicated to the discussion of Microsoft Internet Mail and News and provide a great deal of support. - news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.internet.mail - news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.internet.news These newgroups are one of the best places to go if you are experiencing a problem with Internet Mail and News, as the solution might already be posted by someone else who experienced the same problem. Additionally, Microsoft support engineers monitor these groups. In addition to the news groups mentioned above, there are other useful newsgroups dealing with Microsoft products. These groups can be found on the follwoing Microsoft news server: - msnews.microsoft.com For additional instructions about connecting to the above newsgroups, please see the Troubleshootng section earlier in this document.