Windows Mail (formerly Outlook Express)

MSDN Library
Win32 and COM Development
Messaging and Collaboration

Disclaimer

New applications should not use this technology. It exists for backward compatibility with legacy applications. This technology may not be supported in the next version of Windows.

Introduction

Microsoft Windows Mail (formerly Outlook Express) is an online communication tool supplied as part of Windows Vista and later versions.

This documentation is provided for programmers who want to extend the functionality of Windows Mail.

Developer Audience

The Microsoft Visual C++ class-based interface is designed for use by C/C++ programmers. Familiarity with Component Object Model (COM) is required. Additionally, familiarity with the Windows graphical user interface and message-driven architecture may be helpful.

Windows Mail Documentation

This documentation is organized as shown in the following tables.

Overviews

Accounts File Schema	Describes the mechanism for storing mail, news, and directory service account data.
Extending Windows Mail	Shows tasks and C/C++ programming examples for extending Windows Mail.
What's New	Describes the latest application features.

References

Database	Describes database-related API.
Messaging	Describes messaging-related API.
Networking	Describes network-related API.
Accounts	Describes accounts-related API.
Miscellaneous	Describes miscellaneous API.

Related Topics

Windows Vista provides a mechanism and user interface for storing and retrieving information about people (contacts). For information, see Windows Contacts.

Community Content

Article and Sample code for Outlook Express and Windows Mail API

Added by:Thomas Lee

The "Reading and Writing Messages in Outlook Express" article is at: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/COM/Outlook_Express_Messages.aspx

It contains information & sample code for calling OE & WM APIs.

about "Do not use"

Added by:infomax

The article says "Do not use these interfaces and API for Windows Mail (OE)" but nothing says what to use instead of?

I quite often meet requests on creating add-ons to OE, but nowhere yet have found solution (except several quite expensive libraries built on hooks).

could anybody help?

[mikej] I used the COM API in C# details at:
(http://www.i-programmer.info/projects/38-windows/222-hacking-outlook-com-interop.html)
- what else is there and OE and Windows mail is old technology and I doubt anything is going to replace the old COM API.
So use it any any other internal details that you can find in place of any more suported API