Making Yahoo! Your Default E-mail
I had a very frustrating technical problem with my laptop today. My search of the Internet revealed that many other people are having the same problem. I finally figured it out and so I’ll describe the problem and then what the solution was.
I’ve been using Yahoo! e-mail for years but when I clicked on an e-mail link to send an e-mail, Outlook Express came up. I went into the control panel and chose Internet Options/Programs and then looked at the drop-down list of programs and Yahoo! Mail was not one of the choices. What happened to it? It’s been my default for a long time.
I checked the Yahoo! Mail help question: How can I make Yahoo! Mail my default email application? It said that if Yahoo! Mail didn’t appear on the list of default e-mail programs, you should download Yahoo! Messenger. I checked my Yahoo! Messenger and I already had the latest version installed.
Then I chatted with a tech support person who basically walked me through all the steps that I’d already performed. Finally she suggested that I uninstall Yahoo! Messenger and then download it again and re-install it.
I did that and Yahoo! Mail still didn’t show up on the list of default e-mail programs.
I then checked my desktop and noticed that the Yahoo! Mail program worked fine. It appeared on the list of possible default e-mail programs. I also had a desktop icon named Yahoo! Mail. When I clicked the Start button, then choose “all programs,” there was a program called Yahoo! Mail on the list along with Yahoo! Messenger. My laptop only had the Yahoo! Messenger program and no Yahoo! Mail program and no desktop icon.
I finally realized that I had installed Yahoo! Messenger differently on the two computers.
The solution to the problem is to install the entire Yahoo! Messenger which includes Yahoo Browser Services. I had been eliminating that part and the Yahoo! Toolbar on my laptop because I don’t use the Toolbar and the Browser Services didn’t say anything about being necessary for the default mail function. You don’t have to check the buttons to make Yahoo! your home page or make Yahoo! your default search engine.
I still don’t use the Toolbar but after downloading and installing with the Browser Services I checked the Start/All Programs> list and there was an entry for Yahoo! Mail as well as Yahoo! Messenger. Going to Control Panel/Internet Options/Programs revealed that Yahoo! Mail was now on the list of options for default e-mail.
Now when I click on an e-mail link, I get Yahoo!
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