Windows Mail.Do I need it?

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I am running Windows 7 Pro (64 bit) SP1. I have an SSD for my C: drive, and it is beginning to fill up. I notice that I have a program called Windows Mail, which takes up about 15 MB. I have never used it. I use Thunderbird.

Can I uninstall Windows Mail, or is it integral in some way with Windows 7?

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Yes, but not officially without effort. Integral? I’m not sure why it existed, Windows Mail was reduced to a stub (or proxy for Outlook Express?) by the time Windows 7 was released to market.

In Control Panel under Programs and Features, you can open Turn Windows Features on or off to see if programs you do not need can be removed from your computer.

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From reading your link articles, it appears like I can just change the permission, and then delete the Windows Mail folders. Hopefully Mail is not integral to any other part of Windows, which would cause problems.

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hmw3 wrote:

15 MB

You want to free 15 MB ? What is the size of your C drive and how much free space do you have ?

Run the free portable TreeSize and the free portable Largest Files Finder to find what is taking up your storage.

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Run ccPortable in order to delete temp files, browsers cache files apps cache files…

Add a SSD/HDD external (portable) USB drive and move your documents, photos, music… files to the drive.

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You want to get rid of 15MB?  It is not 15GB

Use a program called ‘wiztree’, it is free; to see what is taking up your SSD

What size is the SSD?  How much RAM do you have? What size is your virtual memory?

I use Thunderbird and have done so for yonks and I just did a scan of my computer and I too have a program installed called Windows Mail; never knew I had it, never used it, never will use

If your SSD is in a PC, you could always clone your C:\, or just leave that drive and just get another HDD; we need to know your set-up to help you better

I have a C:\, plus about a dozen more  :p

 

have a good 1 cheers

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[geekdom]

Windows 7 was issued without a mail client. Windows Essentials, a robust and free Microsoft suite of programs, contained four or five software packages including Windows Live Mail. This suite was installed after the fact on Windows 7 operating systems.

“Windows Mail was absent from Windows 7.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_(Windows)

Are you referring to Windows Live Mail?

The folder is found here:
C:\Users\User Profile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail

In your list of programs do you have a program called Windows Essentials? That program is the suite. Programs in the suite are uninstalled, but not installed from Windows Essentials program on your computer. If you want to keep a program in this suite under no circumstances uninstall it. Windows Essentials is depreciated, but not dead.

On permanent hiatus {with backup and coffee}
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• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by geekdom.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by geekdom.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by geekdom.

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Wow! So many good questions and suggestions. Let me try and respond to everyone in this post. My answers are not necessarily in the order asked or suggested.

My desktop is actually a tower which was built by a local computer shop 6-7 years ago. I have two monitors. The shop installed Windows 7 Pro (64bit). I updated it as necessary to SP1. (I also have a Lenovo Windows 7 Pro (64bit) laptop, which will be mentioned near the end.)

I have a 250GB (nominal) SSD drive (C:), and a 1TB conventional drive (D:) installed in the tower. I also have a 4TB conventional external drive connected via USB 3.

All of my Windows files AND my primary data files are stored on the 250GB SSD drive. Less used data files, and my Image backups (I use Macrium Reflect) are stored on D:. I mainly use the 4TB external drive to store copies of my Image backups for safety, and some very old files that haven’t been accessed in years.

I primarily use the program Folder Size Professional 64 bit (currently 4.5.0.0) to quickly sort my various folders (Users, Windows, Program Files, etc.) so I can see where most of the data is stored in decreasing size order. I also use the programs Easy Duplicate Finder and Duplicate Photo Finder to more easily help me eliminate duplicates which are not backups.

My SSD has 209 GB usable capacity. When I first posted, I had only 28 GB free. After working on this, I now have 52 GB free. And I have yet to start looking for duplicates.

I asked about Windows Mail simply because I never have used it, and even though it is only 15MB, I see no need to keep it. One post by ‘geekdom’ referenced Windows Essentials/Live Essentials, and asked if that was what I had. I had never heard of Windows Essentials, so I went to Control Panel->Programs & Features and looked. On my LAPTOP I have Windows Live Essentials 2011, and it contains 5 programs: Messenger, Photo Gallery & Movie Maker, Windows Live Mesh, Mail & Writer. However, on my DESKTOP, what I have is Windows Essentials 2012, and it ONLY contains Photo Gallery & Movie Maker; nothing else. So Mail was obviously installed separately. Since I didn’t do the Windows 7 installation, perhaps there is an option somewhere that the shop was able to pick and choose what to install. My only instructions were that I didn’t want any ‘crapware’.

So knowing all that background, I ask my initial question again: Is it safe to uninstall Windows Mail from my desktop, and if so, exactly how do I do it safely?

Harry

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It seems there is no official way to remove it.

See this post for more: https://superuser.com/questions/161506/how-to-uninstall-windows-mail

cheers, Paul

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my advice would be to just leave it alone, you’re more than likely to invoke SFC integrity violation errors for the system if you remove Mail in Win7 via third party stuff.
Look elsewhere to save space, old unused programs etc that can be replaced using portable apps opposed to an installation.
If you are not likely to use Mail, I suggest a small utility to prevent it from starting at logon: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns is a 2.5mb valuable portable utility to have at your disposal.

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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As I said in an earlier post, my laptop has Windows Live Essentials 2011. In theory, once it is selected on Control Panel -> Windows and Features, one to allowed to uninstall any of the programs that are part of Live Essentials. So I chose to uninstall Mail.

But it doesn’t actually uninstall the directories that contain Mail. It appears to just prevent it from opening!

So I then tried to delete the appropriate directories. But perhaps because these are Windows files, running at Administrator did not give me access. So I created a .bat file by copying the information at this link that Paul suggested:   https://superuser.com/questions/161506/how-to-uninstall-windows-mail.

That deleted the necessary directories on my laptop. So far everything on my laptop seems to be functioning just fine. If all continues well, I will try it on my desktop (after doing an Image backup).

Thanks for everyone’s help. If I run into any problems on my desktop, I will report back.

Harry

1 user thanked author for this post.

Elly

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