Vista - HELP w/ CONTACTS & EMAIL

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Our old computer died and we just got a brand new computer with Vista on it
and I'm having a really hard time with the transfer now that I can't use the
same program that I did before ("Outlook Express") to manage our Contacts &
Emails.

I've been trying to troubleshoot this for over 2 weeks now - going through
all the "help" buttons, calling all the tech support, everything I can think
of and I can't figure it out. I NEED HELP. I'm practically at a standstill
until I can figure out which is the right program to use and get it set up on
both computers. If you have any suggestions or know anyone who does similar
work with contacts & emails & can suggest a solution, I would REALLY
APPRECIATE IT!

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WE NEED COMPUTER HELP W/ MANAGING CONTACTS & EMAILS:

QUESTION #1

We need to be able to manage hundreds/thousands of contacts:

We need to be able to organize those contacts under multiple groups (for
example: Contact A should go under “Austin group� as well as “Reiki group�
and Contact B should go under “California Group� and “Reiki group�) ...we
need groups, or fields or tags...whatever will allow me to click "Reiki" &
see everyone who wants to take it or click on "Austin" and see everyone in
Austin.

Another need is to be able to access these contacts and have them in sync
and updated at separate computers (a laptop & desktop that we could network)
What is the best way or program to use to do this?

"Outlook Express" could do this, but now we’re on Vista and "Outlook
Express" is replaced by "Windows Mail"... all of our Contacts were uploaded
to "Windows Mail" and it does not allow me to open up each Contact & see
which groups I’ve already placed people in...thus my current problem

"Windows Live Mail" (also made for Vista, I've just uploaded everything into
it and it looks like it's identical to "Windows Mail" in that it still
doesn't allow me to see which groups I put a Contact in - not helpful)

"Microsoft Outlook 2007" (it looks like it has "Categories" instead of
"groups" and might do what I'm needing...it still didn't transfer the groups
people where already in - i guess because they don't have a "group"
field...so I may have to figure out how to get our Contact info exported into
excel so that I can update the fields and re-import it back into "Microsoft
Outlook 2007" so that it will show the "groups/categories" I already had
people in - this might be a good possible solution, I guess networking the
computers would allow us to see the same thing as well...i think)

"Excel" file (this is super basic, but at least the info would be there and
I might not have this issue of loosing important data - which groups people
are under - if we ever have to transfer again in the future)

Some other option I don't know about


QUESTION #2

Need to be able to access email from separate computers (a laptop & desktop
that we could network)

If I send an email to someone from the laptop, I need to be able to see what
I sent from the desktop, or if I delete junk mail from the desktop, I need
that same item to be deleted from the laptop next time I get on it. (How we
used to be set up with the old computer, we were doing double work w/ both
computers with "Outlook Express" and downloading the info from the email
server)
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Thank you so much for ANY help or suggestions you may have,