I have tried all the "live" products and none of them compare to Outlook Express, Windows Movie Maker or any of the other programs that came with XP. I'm so disappointed that I'm going to go back to XP and I bought 3 copies of Windows 7 Pro for my home computer network. It's a fact that Windows does a bunch of things really well and then screws it all up with their stupid decisions. I tried VISTA and decided against it. I love Windows 7, but can't stand the lack of thought for those of us using XP Pro and all it's integral programs. If they offered Outlook Express as a download, I'd use it. If they offered Windows Movie Maker as a download, I'd use it. I've tried Thunderbird and a bunch of others and they mostly suck. Simple programs like OE and WMM made things easy and simple for those users who weren't interested in big projects. Microsoft, get with it. At the same time as you're trying to maintain market share, you're driving away customers because of your lack of foresight. Christ almighty, who the ____ makes these decisions. Offer the add on products as a download and stop trying to re-invent the wheel. Give us back our good solid products, willya?

mpwilson - You're not alone in voicing concerns about this sort of thing. The thing is, there are valid reasons why things have gone the way they have. Mainly, it's a preemptive strike against anyone thinking about suing Microsoft (ala the way Opera did not too long ago). It's too much of a distration and a pain in the nether regions to have to fend off these lame law suits from companies that have products that can't earn market share based on quality and word of mouth or advertising. You are aware that you can configure Windows Live Mail to look like and behave like Outlook Express for the most part. There ARE a few features that Outlook Express doesn't have that the newer versions (Windows Mail in Vista and Windows Live Mail) do have. Such as the ability to connect it to a Hotmail account. But other than that, WLM is pretty much the same thing as OE - just a newer version. You can go into the configuration of the program and arrange window panes to look and act like OE. Seriously... I hate to see you tossing Windows 7 - which, IMO is a better OS than XP ever was - merely because you have to download some stuff and tweak it to your liking.