Connecting to Your Primary E-Mail Account

The automatic setup functionality provided by the Outlook 2007 Startup wizard is a significant improvement over previous versions of Outlook, which required that you provide much more information. It might not work under all circumstances, but it generally does a very good job. In most cases, the only information you need is your e-mail address and password.

See Also If the Outlook automatic setup functionality doesn't work for you, see "Troubleshooting the Startup Wizard" later in this chapter.

In this exercise, you will start Outlook and configure it to connect to a Microsoft Exchange Server account. Although we demonstrate connecting to an Exchange Server account, you can follow the same basic process to connect to another type of e-mail server. There are no practice files for this exercise.

BE SURE TO have your e-mail address and password available before beginning this exercise. If connecting to an Exchange Server account, you must be connected to your network. If you are working off-network, you might first need to establish a virtual private network (VPN) connection.

See Also For information about establishing a VPN connection, see "Connecting Outlook to Your Server from a Remote Location" in Chapter 11, "Working Away from Your Office."

1. On the taskbar, click the Start button.

2. On the Start menu, point to All Programs, click Microsoft Office, and then click Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.

   Tip 

   If the E-mail link at the top of the Start menu specifies Microsoft Office Outlook as your default e-mail program, you can click that link instead.

   Outlook 2007 starts. If Outlook hasn't yet been configured to connect to an e-mail account, the Outlook 2007 Startup wizard starts.

   Tip 

   What you see on your screen might not match the graphics in this book exactly. The screens in this book were captured on a monitor set to a resolution of 1024×768 pixels, with the Windows taskbar hidden to increase the display space.

   See Also If Outlook is already configured to connect to an e-mail account and you would like to configure a second account, see "Connecting to Additional E-Mail Accounts" later in this chapter.

3. On the welcome page, click Next.

   If you have an e-mail account set up in another e-mail program on this computer, Outlook offers the option of importing account information from that account.

   

   For the purposes of this exercise, we will not select that option, but you might find it convenient to do so when setting up your own account.

4. On the E-mail Upgrade Options page, select the Do not upgrade option, and then click Next to display the E-mail Accounts page.

   

5. With the Yes option selected, click Next.

6. On the Auto Account Setup page, enter your name, e-mail address, and password in the corresponding text boxes.

   

   Notice the option here to manually configure your server settings. If you have trouble configuring Outlook by using the automatic setup tool, you can make manual changes by selecting this check box and then clicking Next.

   See Also For information about manually setting up Outlook, see "Troubleshooting the Startup Wizard" later in this chapter.

7. On the Auto Account Setup page, click Next.

   

   Provided it doesn't encounter any connection or security issues, Outlook uses the minimal information you provided to connect to your e-mail server and create your Outlook profile.

   Tip 

   If this is the first time you have started a 2007 Microsoft Office system program, Office prompts you to enter your full name and initials. The programs in the 2007 Office system use this information when tracking changes, responding to messages, and so on. Next, Office prompts you to select the type of information you want to share over the Internet, and finally, offers the option of signing up for automatic program updates from the Microsoft Update service. None of these options place you at risk, and all can be quite useful.

   The first time you start Outlook, it asks whether you want to combine and synchronize RSS feeds in Outlook and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

8. Unless you have a reason not to do so, in the Microsoft Office Outlook message box asking whether to combine the RSS Feed lists, click Yes.

   Outlook displays your Inbox.

   

   A test message from Outlook appears at the top of the Inbox. Your other e-mail messages will appear below the test message.