jofoster

Thanks.

No. My first concern was with the contacts, in a pre-provided folder to which I thought I would transfer all my contacts since it seemed to offer opportunities to link people with a record of their emails (why wouldn't one want this?) and in a way they could easily be backed up and accessed offline.

Yes, I might have then moved my emailing from Outlook to Windows Mail

BUT closer investigation of the Contacts help revealed that when using the group email function you can't hide email addresses! I always use BCC - don't want them all spamming each other and blaming me. And the contact record forms have multiple boxes but not "category".

SO I guess I'll stay with Outlook and launch once again into working out how to make it regularly back itself up. With my last computer this took two years to get right, then the habit disappeared with the new laptop.

I hate the way the .pst files are separated from what used to be called "my computer" on the hard disk. I have parallel sets of folders which I can't even run side by side for ease of copying and pasting to word files. The only way of including the date etc is to forward each message to oneself and end up with many duplicates.

I have used computers alone at home for 27 years with no help from colleagues. At least when I first got Windows and struggled until 4am (UK time) to close down, I was able to phone microsoft in Seattle who said "click Start" (start???)