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Change Default Email Program
Frequently Asked Questions
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How to Change Your Default Email Program

Windows uses a default email program, which is the one that appears at the top of the Start menu, and the one that's used when you perform an action that requires email (such as right-clicking on a file, selecting "Send To" and then "Mail Recipient". Usually, this is set to whichever email client was provided with the operating system (Outlook Express on Windows XP, and Windows Mail on Vista).

If you want to change this in Windows Vista, you need to open the Default Programs section of the Control Panel. You can do this by selecting "Default Programs" from the Start menu.

Once you have the Default Programs section of the Control Panel open, select the first entry ("Set your default programs").

In the "Set your default programs" window, select the email program that you want to use as your default (it must already be installed on your computer to show up here), click on "set this program as default", and click "OK".

If you go back to the Start menu, you should see the new program that you selected appearing at the top as your default email program.

How to Change Your Default Email Program in Windows XP

To make the same change in Windows XP, select "Set Program Access and Defaults" from the Start menu. Select "custom", select the program that you want to use in the "Choose a default e-mail program" section (it must already be installed on your computer to show up here), and then click "OK" to confirm the change.

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