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XP/Vista-compatible clients for modern email services?


Mathwiz

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I recently needed to find an XP-compatible email client for Micro$oft 365. Initially I asked about it in an odd place, @roytam1's browser thread, for two reasons:

  1. In addition to XP-compatible browsers, Roytam1 maintains a couple of XP-compatible email clients: IceDove and MailNews.
  2. The folks who follow that thread are very knowledgeable about modern Internet protocols in general.

The stumbling block was the need for OAuth2 authentication. With modern email services like Micro$oft 365, you can't just enter your password into your email client anymore. As it happens, MailNews does support OAuth2, but that still wasn't enough. To work with modern email services, your email client now needs to be registered with their servers, something that was never done for MailNews. Luckily, @AstroSkipper pointed me to an XP-compatible email client that is registered with several popular email services including Micro$oft 365: Outlook Express Classic.

... so I went with OE Classic. I've now been using it for about a month.

Unfortunately, I'm not particularly happy. OE Classic has several bugs and quirks that are problematic for serious use:

  • My biggest gripe is with the severe limitations of the free version; particularly its insistence on dropping ads for itself into the first pages of all your emails. Thus, you're forced to upgrade to the Pro version for $37 before you can even evaluate it properly. I was able to tell that it did work with Micro$oft 365, but that was about all. (Also, your $37 only entitles you to use the "Pro" features on one machine. I would've expected 3: one each for home, work, and laptop. At a minimum, the software should give you 30 days before the limitations kick in!) So I paid my $37, and at first I was happy; but then I started finding other problems.
  • Every time OE Classic polls the server for new email, it changes the focus to the last email on the list, causing you to have to find and select the email you were reading all over again. And I don't mean it moves to the most recent email; I really mean the last email on the list, however it happens to be sorted at the time. I often sort by sender or subject to find related emails, and if OE Classic polls the server while I have it sorted that way, I find myself looking at the Y's and Z's instead of what I was looking at before! (If I'm reading a specific email, a workaround I found is to open the email I'm reading. The main page will still move to the last email on the list, but the email I'm reading remains open in a separate window. So this isn't a complete show-stopper, but it's still quite annoying.)
  • If a recoverable error occurs while polling the email server, OE Classic's response is to pop up an error window - and then just stop! It won't poll the server any more until you dismiss the window. This can cause you to miss incoming email if it happens while you're doing something else, such as Web browsing.
  • If an unrecoverable error occurs, such as needing to re-authenticate (perhaps because my email password has changed, or just because Micro$oft 365 is being cranky), the only way to re-authenticate is to delete the account and recreate it from scratch! I'm required to change my password every 60 days, so this is really irritating!
  • OE Classic doesn't appear to use multiple processes. This can really slow you down when using the IMAP protocol, especially if you have a lot of folders. It takes quite a while to refresh everything, during which, if you click on an email that needs to be downloaded from the server, you get to stare at a blank email for several seconds until OE Classic finally finishes what it's doing and gets around to downloading the email you clicked on.
  • The "Unread messages" count on each folder doesn't update until you click on the folder to view it! That can cause you to miss emails that get sent to a folder other than the one you're viewing.
  • The "Find" function doesn't work, at least on Windows XP. Perhaps it needs Windows Search installed, which I haven't done, but the original OE and Windows Live Mail had at least some search capability that didn't rely on Windows Search being installed.
  • A more minor bug is, on Windows XP only, icons all have black backgrounds instead of transparent ones. (This didn't seem to be a problem when I tried it on Windows 7 though; only on XP.)

If OE Classic just had one or two of these kinds of issues, I'd probably live with it and/or (if the issues were really annoying) get with the developer to see if he could fix them. But there are so many, I decided to start a thread here instead. Is anything else available for Windows XP - or even Vista?

I did find one: IncrediMail v2.5. The free version is supposed to be adware, but I don't mind as long as I'm the one who has to look at the ads!

Unfortunately the developer pulled the plug on this product a few years ago, so you can't register IncrediMail any more - but the client does work on XP, at least for a while. (I suspect, though, that without being able to register, it won't work forever - does anyone know?) Unfortunately IncrediMail 2.5 predates Micro$oft 365, so I can't use it. I don't know if there's a newer XP-compatible version either. I haven't found a copy to try yet.

Edited by Mathwiz
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On 2/8/2023 at 6:24 AM, Mathwiz said:

The stumbling block was the need for OAuth2 authentication. With modern email services like Micro$oft 365, you can't just enter your password into your email client anymore. As it happens, MailNews does support OAuth2, but that still wasn't enough. To work with modern email services, your email client now needs to be registered with their servers, something that was never done for MailNews. Luckily, @AstroSkipper pointed me to an XP-compatible email client that is registered with several popular email services including Micro$oft 365: Outlook Express Classic.

... so I went with OE Classic. I've now been using it for about a month. Unfortunately, I'm not particularly happy.

On 2/8/2023 at 6:24 AM, Mathwiz said:

So I decided to start a thread. Is anything else available for Windows XP - or even Vista?

Hello @Mathwiz! To be honest, after the recent changes to Gmail & Co. it has become more problematic to find a fully functioning email client on Windows XP. :angry: There are still a couple of XP-compatible email clients but whether they support all email services or most recent protocols has to be researched or tested. Anyway! I found one interesting, well-known (first release in 1990) candidate for you. It's Pegasus Mail v4.81 with Gmail OAUTH2 support released last month (January 2023), at the moment as a public beta (see below). Here is the link: https://www.pmail.com/betas.htm and the download link: https://download-us.pmail.com/w32-481-pb3.exe. It's free of charge and on their homepage, Pegasus Mail is listed as XP/Vista-compatible.
Quotation from their homepage:

Quote

Update, August 2022  

After a difficult and mostly pretty horrible two-month process, Google have now approved Pegasus Mail to use OAUTH2 for accessing GMail. BUT (you knew there was going to be a "but", didn't you)... In the time we have been waiting for the approval to complete, they have changed their own rules (by deciding that they will no longer accept the redirect method we were previously successfully using), and as a result, our OAUTH2 module no longer works. The solution involves — and I'm not joking here — writing our own web server, and starting it up to receive the token from Google when you authorize Pegasus Mail to access your account. Fortunately, I have written web servers before, so this process is not as serious a problem as it might have been, but the simple fact that I should need to do it at all indicates just how ridiculous this whole 'OAUTH2 migration' has become. I am now well into the process of completing a small web server I can include in Pegasus Mail to accommodate Google. It should require no configuration or setup, and Pegasus Mail users should not even know it's there, doing its work in the background. I hope to have the amended module in testing around the middle of August, and if all goes well, should have Pegasus Mail v4.81 with full GMail OAUTH2 support ready a short time after that.

Thank you for sticking with me through this entire, arduous business.

More information about Pegasus Mail v4.8x can be found here: https://www.pmail.com/v48x.htm
Short quotation from there:

Quote

Because the OAUTH2 process is so complex, we are taking the unusual step of releasing v4.81 initially as a public beta available to anyone for a month or so before we move it into unrestricted release. While the program is in public beta, we ask that any sites that mirror Pegasus Mail distributions do not expose the beta archive — it is only to be made available from the public beta page on this site.

And a list of its features: https://www.pmail.com/overviews/ovw_winpmail.htm

Cheers, AstroSkipper matrix.gif

Edited by AstroSkipper
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I didn't try the recent version of Pegasus Mail but it is listed as XP-compatible on their homepage. If it really can't be installed, then they haven't updated the system requirements on their homepage. Anyway! Here is the quotation of their system requirements:

Quote

Pegasus Mail will run on all versions of Windows starting with Windows XP.

 

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Well, what happens exactly is, when I run its installer on XP, it shows its instance in the taskbar, then closes immediately. And once I go to Add or Remove Programs, Pegasus Mail v4.81 appears as installed there, and I can uninstall it from there as if it was installed, but there's no folder on Start Menu, no desktop shortcut or anything. There isn't even a Pegasus Mail folder in Program Files folder!

This was all under a XP SP3 VM btw, but I doubt there would be any difference if installed in real hardware.

Edited by mina7601
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The ovw_winpmail.htm page is seriously out of date. It claims that the program runs on Win98 and uses only 10 MB of disk space. The installer unpacked into the temp directory is over 50 MB. The legacy version 4.51 is nowhere to be found.

Why have we let Google get away with locking down e-mail and adding so much bloat to it? All the forums and commercial websites rely on e-mail to enable accounts. If e-mail can't arrive, we will get locked out of those. Google has OAuth today, but as the author of Pegasus writes, they already changed it to require new software. Next year they will have something else.

I like that Pegasus still has its own basic HTML engine that opens fast. Everything else today bundles a web browser.

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13 hours ago, j7n said:

The legacy version 4.51 is nowhere to be found.

Here is the download link of Pegasus Mail 4.51https://download-us.pmail.com/w32-451.exe 

Cheers, AstroSkipper matrix.gif

PS: Didn't see that the link was already posted. :) BTW, many old files are on their server which are not listed anymore on their download site. Trial and error is the way!

Edited by AstroSkipper
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55 minutes ago, AstroSkipper said:

The current version, Pegasus Mail 4.80, is XP-compatible. I could successfully install it on my real Windows XP computer, and it runs as expected. :thumbup At next, I will try the beta version 4.81.

The installer of Pegasus Mail 4.81 beta doesn't work properly under Windows XP, indeed and unfortunately. :angry: I reported it to the technical support of Pegasus via email. I'm curious to see if anyone gets back to me and if it's of any use. :dubbio:

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As I already said, fully functioning email clients under Windows XP are rare and not easy to find. Nevertheless, I have found another candidate whose latest version is supposed to be XP-compatible according to the homepage and many other sites. d010.gif This is the email client DreamMail Pro. It is available in the latest version 6.6.5.9 from 05.01.2023.
The program comes from a Chinese manufacturer and is of course available in English and some other languages. It is free of charge and actually being further developed. In China, Windows XP is still appreciated, as we know. :thumbup I did a short test. It installs successfully under Windows XP and runs there properly as far as I can see in a few seconds of testing. Rather unpleasant is the installer, which strangely can only be opened in Chinese. :angry:
Here is the link to DreamMail's homepagehttps://www.cy-email.com/ and its installerhttps://dl.cy-email.com/dm6/Download/dmpro_setup6.6.5.9.exe

Greetings from Germany, AstroSkipper mail0.gif

Edited by AstroSkipper
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On 2/10/2023 at 10:05 PM, AstroSkipper said:

As I already said, fully functioning email clients under Windows XP are rare and not easy to find. Nevertheless, I have found another candidate whose latest version is supposed to be XP-compatible according to the homepage and many other sites. d010.gif This is the email client DreamMail Pro. It is available in the latest version 6.6.5.9 from 05.01.2023.
The program comes from a Chinese manufacturer and is of course available in English and some other languages. It is free of charge and actually being further developed. In China, Windows XP is still appreciated, as we know. :thumbup I did a short test. It installs successfully under Windows XP and runs there properly as far as I can see in a few seconds of testing. Rather unpleasant is the installer, which strangely can only be opened in Chinese. :angry:
Here is the link to DreamMail's homepagehttps://www.cy-email.com/ and its installerhttps://dl.cy-email.com/dm6/Download/dmpro_setup6.6.5.9.exe

Greetings from Germany, AstroSkipper matrix.gif

To force the installer of DreamMail Pro 6.6.5.9 to use English instead of Chinese as the installer language, I created a small loader that does this when it calls up the setup program. It must be executed in the same directory in which the setup file is located with its original file name dmpro_setup6.6.5.9.exe. Here is the download link of my loader: https://www.mediafire.com/file/4bh4pybunlmr5hq/ForceEnInstall.7z/file link.gif
Although some virus scanners detect this file as malicious, it is just a false-positive as always. Use my loader to force an English install, only if you trust me, of course! :P

Cheers, AstroSkipper matrix.gif

Edited by AstroSkipper
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On 2/9/2023 at 7:13 PM, mina7601 said:

I'm afraid it's wrong. It doesn't even install on XP, only on Vista and later.

OK, so Pegasus v4.80 works on XP, but 4.81 beta requires Vista. Well, at least we're getting close!

It's pretty unusual to find software that installs on Vista but not XP. Most developers dropped both at the same time and moved up to Win 7.

One other product I know that runs on Vista but not XP is Firefox 53. But it can be patched to run on XP with XomPie. Makes me wonder if Pegasus 4.81 can be patched as well. OTOH, maybe they'll fix it for XP. (I'm guessing 4.80 does not do OAuth2.)

Of course, that's only half the battle. To work with Micro$oft 365, it needs not only to support OAuth2, but also to be registered with Microsoft 365 as an email client. This is the real show-stopper for XP email clients, which are likely to be individual developers these days (the big corporations having moved on long ago): you have to register your email client with every major email service that has mandated OAuth2: Google, Micro$oft, Yahoo, etc.

Edit: Well, it looks like Pegasus 4.81 is a no-go. I tried it on my home machine (Win 7) and it supports OAuth2 for Gmail only. Not Micro$oft 365.

Of course, once they have OAuth2 "down pat," they can presumably add other email services. So they may add 365 in 4.82. But until then, it does me no good.

BTW, the Pegasus 4.81 installer rebooted my PC with no warning! This is very bad - I could've been in the middle of something important and lost it all! (Of course they say "exit all other apps before installing," but everyone says that, nobody does it, and everybody else gives you a "Restart Later" option.)

Edited by Mathwiz
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Uh-Oh

I just tried DreamMail Pro on my home system. It did the OAuth2 thing just fine, but when I logged in, Micro$oft gave me this nonsense:

Quote

To reduce the risk of malicious applications attempting to trick users into granting them access to your organization's data, we recommend that you allow user consent only for applications that have been published by a verified publisher.

I don't think I'm going to get "admin approval" for this. They really want me using Outlook 365 on Windows 10 or 11, and I'm trying to find a way to avoid that!

Edited by Mathwiz
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