How do you define Windows Mail?
 Windows Mail is the version of the Mail and News Client that ships with Windows Vista.

 Outlook has nice looking high colour message icons for new messages and read/replied/forwarded/etc… In Windows Mail, there are horrible looking icons that do not even look like mail messages! Will these be updated to Outlook style icons that look good?
 They have a great new set of icons that we are currently integrating into the app. You will see most (hopefully all) of these new icons in the Beta 2 release.

 Does the Windows Mail team plan on implementing RSS Feed into Windows Mail like they did with Office 2007?
 Windows Mail is not implementing RSS in Vista. This is a great idea though.

 Will Windows Mail be back ported to Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 like IE7 is expected to be?
 Windows Mail will is scheduled to only ship in the operating system. Windows Mail Live Desktop does run on Windows XP.

 Is it possible in a future release of Windows Mail to write email in ink on a Tablet PC (like in Outlook 2003 now for example)? It would be a great feature for tablet PC users
 Absolutely! Windows Mail does that now in the February CTP. We even have auto complete for the To: and CC: lines for tablet mode.

 Will “find” in Windows Mail be made better? If so will it be part of an indexed search?
 Yes, email is now indexed in Vista. You can find it with the explorer search feature and in Windows Mail in the world wheel (top of the main window). Finding mail is much easier now!

 Why won’t Windows Mail support Hotmail accounts anymore?
 Hotmail support was removed for a number of reasons within both Windows and the Hotmail organizations.

 How come Microsoft changed the name for Outlook Express to Microsoft Mail?
 One of the reasons for the name change is that it makes us more aligned with the Windows brand and reduces confusion with Outlook.

 Switching newsgroup is still sluggish. We were told this would improve. How far are we now?
 In fact this week we just finished a month long performance drive and this was a key thing addressed in it.

 When Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta is released, is it going to replace Windows Mail?
 No, we’ve worked too hard on it for it to be replaced now! These are two separate apps with different strategies and feature sets.

 What are the “Community features” present in Windows Mail, what do they provide that normal newsgroups don’t, and do beta newsgroups support that?
 Community features are the rating and ranking functionality that allow newsgroup users to mark a specific newsgroup post as useful or not useful. Ranking functionality allows Windows Mail to mark newsgroup posters as MVPs, and also takes the data from the newsgroup ratings and translates it into poster rankings. A person who historically posts ‘useful’ newsgroup feedback is ranked higher than a poster who has not ever posted a newsgroup answer that was marked useful.

 Will the splash screen ever be updated? The blue splash looks bad on Vista - please make something that looks better like the Office 2003 splash or something!
 This is in the works!

 Will Windows Mail be a part of “Longhorn” Server?
 No it is not part of the server package

 What are the the five top things you like in Windows Mail?
 1) Contacts experience is integrated with shell for a richer experience in or outside of Windows Mail;
    2) Better database, less corruption;
    3) It feels cleaner, has improved visuals;
    4) Search and wordwheel helps finding mail and contacts easier and more consistent with the rest of Vista;
    5) Junk mail and phishing integration and improvements.