Set up Bigpond email in Windows Live Mail

Though new Windows 7 computers / laptops may not come with an inbuilt email client, you can download Windows Live Mail which is a free program from Microsoft meant to replace Outlook Express (XP) and Windows Mail Vista.

Once the software is up and running, it takes less than a minute to set up your Bigpond email account on your computer. You would not only be able to download and save the messages on the local machine but also safeguard important email by taking regular back ups of the Windows Live Mail program.

FYI, Bigpond service supports only the POP email protocol on its free email accounts. People who want to use IMAP, I suggest forwarding messages to Gmail or AOL (both of which offer IMAP for free) and then setting up this account in the chosen email program.

Instructions and screenshots – Set up Bigpond in Windows Live Mail

Windows Live Mail has made it very easy for beginners to set up their email accounts. All that one needs to know are the account login details and the Bigpond email settings.

1. Launch the Windows Live Mail program and click the “Add e-mail account” link – [Slide 1].
2. A window will pop-up. Enter your Bigpond email address, the account password and a display name – [Slide 2]. Note: Recipients will identify your messages from the display name so make sure it’s either your actual name or that of your organization.
3. Check the “Manually configure server settings for e-mail account” and move to the next screen – [Slide 3].
4. With POP3 selected from the “My incoming mail server is a” drop down, type in mail.bigpond.com in both the Incoming and Outgoing server fields – [Slide 4].
5. Enter your full email address in the Login ID field – [Slide 5]. No other option needs to be selected / ticked.
6. Click the “Next” button and then “Finish” to complete the process of setting up your Bigpond email in Windows Live Mail.

Can I use another email program on my Windows 7 computer / laptop?

OK, so now that you’ve learnt how to set up and add a Bigpond email account in Windows Live Mail, can you use a different email program?
Yes… and there are many choices!

Thunderbird from Mozilla is free and Outlook, which is a full-fledged email client, is available as a trial download. (Outlook costs a tad less than $140 at the time of writing). For more alternatives, check out the email programs list.

Unfortunately, there is no way you can have Outlook Express on Windows 7. As far as I know, this client cannot be installed in the new operating system. However, Vista users may find some joy in getting Windows Mail on Windows 7.