Microsoft has released the much awaited wave 4 version of Windows Live Essentials suite. It contains lots of new features and enhancements like ribbons, new social networking sites integration, etc.
I'm using Windows Live Mail Wave 4 since a few days but I'm not liking it.Why? Reasons are as following:
1. First the ribbon thing uses a lot of valuable space and tbh an email client doesn't even need ribbons. We just need a few simple buttons on toolbar like Reply, forward, spam, attachment, delete, etc.
So I minimized the ribbon and put the Quick Access Toolbar below the ribbon to use it like a standard toolbar. But for my wonder, it doesn't provide very basic buttons like Reply all, Forward, Junk, Mark as read, etc. That's really irritating. There must be option to add more buttons like the mentioned ones.
So whenever I want to forward or mark an email as junk, I need to maximize the ribbon again and click on desired button. Of course I can use keyboard shortcuts but that's another thing.
2. Only God knows why Microsoft increased the font size of Message list which shows message title and sender name in the middle section.
WLM Wave 4:
WLM Wave 3:
It uses more space now and doesn't show as much details as it used to show in previous version. The most annoying thing is that you can't decrease the size. There is no such option available.
Of course I can select One-line view but I don't like it and I'm used to the two-line view.
3. Also there is a bug in Signature feature. Many times it adds 2-3 extra lines between email content and signature and we need to manually delete those extra annoying lines.
So guys! I'm back to good old Windows Live Mail Wave 3 until either Microsoft releases an update to fix the above issues or someone releases a tool to fix them.
This article was posted by VG in following section: Windows Live.
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AKLP
useless ribbon is useless
A Hylian Human
Actually, you can add any command that is on the ribbon to the Quick Access Toolbar simply by right clicking on the desired button and selecting "Add to Quick Access Toolbar." I would have thought someone like you would know that. You've been able to do that since Microsoft Office 2007.
As far as the other two problems, don't know what to tell you. Never saw that bug with the signatures.
Bevan Baby
I agree with you. The ribbon has been getting out of control with so many things and in a mail client useless. I would use the old one like you. WOW, MS ruin another great product
A Hylian Human
@VB No problem. I have to say, I love the ribbon. But, each to his/her own. =)
SuperSoldier
You spelled "Mark as Read" as "Mars as Read".
SCBright
Sincerely? I don't care about WLM cause I use Outlook only. :)
SDreamer
I'm liking it alright so far, I'm alright with the ribbon interface, I have it minimized too on my netbook, which is great imo to have. What I don't like about Wave 4 much is that they took out the ink feature in messenger, which was great, but I guess wasn't used enough by many people. To me this just shows that the company with Gates is going towards money and no longer towards innovating. Gates was big on tablet interface, and this gone is kinda disheartening.
A Hylian Human
Oh oops, I just realized I put VB instead of VG. My bad.
*facepalm*
Patrick
looks fine with me, i can call it as an upgrade, not all ms programs have this ribbon, and wlm 2011 is a lot better than outlook for me, its stylish and clean
Prashant
Why use such thingy? Use webmails like gmail or live.com, they have superb tools.