Kendall,

It might be easiest of you talk to someone on the phone who has the same programs and can talk you through it. However, here are the things you need to know about your current email, and you can find it by going into

Outlook "Tools" and dropping down to "Email Accounts."

A box should pop up, and you can toggle the radio button on "view or change existing email accounts."

Click "next."

You'll see a box that says something like "Outlook processes e-mail for these accounts in the following order:"
In my version of Outlook, I have set it up to download my Google email, so it has "pop.gmail.com" under name and under type it says "POP/SMTP (default)". Do you see something similar? Then write these things down.

Next, click on the "change" button beside the box with name and type.

This resulting box is a goldmine. This is where you have everything else that you need for setting up the Thunderbird. Be sure to pay particular attention to "Incoming mail server (POP3)" and "Outgoing mail server (SMPT)". Mine say, in that order "pop.gmail.com" and smpt.gmail.com" (none of these things have quotes, I'm using them for your benefit).

You can close out that dialog box without making any changes.

In Thunderbird, I opened it and went to "tools" and "account settings."

The account name you want to set up in there is the full email address.

Under "Server Settings" you want to put the Server Name as the same as the Incoming server in Outlook.

For your user name, put just the first part (i.e., stillyriversage, but not @whatever.com)

You can tell it how often you want it to check for new email, set it to download from the server, and I have mine set to empty trash on exit.

Still in the Account Settings box, click on "Outgoing Server (SMTP) and tell it the name of the outgoing server. I think my Outlook isn't set for that, so I'm not sure what to tell you to call it, but you may find that information in your Outlook. My Eudora mail is also set up for a sprynet account, as is my Thunderbird, and that one calls my "SMTP Server )outgoing)"
"mail.sprynet.com" so you'll probably have something comparable.

Eudora is really easy to set up also. It is free if you accept a little ad in the lower left hand corner. I hardly ever even notice it.

I hope this helps. Print it out and see if you can find all of the corresponding bits in your Outlook mail and plug them into Thunderbird.

To open Thunderbird once it is set up, what I did was go to the start menu, open the programs, and at Mozilla Thunderbird you see an arrow so mouse over and you'll see Mozilla Thunderbird again with a couple of other options. RIGHT CLICK over the program name, not one of the options, and in that dialog box click on "send to" and in that dialog box, choose "desktop." It'll put the Thunderbird icon on your desktop, and you just click on that to open your mail.

Now after all of that writing, I hope the Mudcat is up and it goes through. I'll save a copy just in case. Print this out, make notes for yourself as you go, and you should be able to set up a new account. As you work through it you'll see other choices, but they have to do with managing your mail, not getting it into the box in the first place.

Good luck!

Maggie (SRS)