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General discussion

Gmail, Windows Live

Mar 26, 2011 10:44AM PDT

I recently moved from XP to Windows 7. I use web mail (Gmail). When I was using XP and I wanted to e-mail a photo I right clicked on the photo, selected "send to" then selected "mail recipient" and it opened my gmail program and photo was ready for sending. The same procedure now takes me to Windows Live and I do not wish to use Windows Live. (Nothing personal, just my preference).
I know I can select "attach a file" in gmail but it seemed much simpler using the the right click method.
Is there a way I can use gmail instead of Windows Live?
As an aside, I might add I am old dog. Don't learn new tricks like I used to. That's why, after all these years, I am still a Newbie. I don't always appreciate all of the "stuff" they include that I will never use. I had my new computer built locally, at a favorable price, and one of the advantages is there is a minimum of bloatware.

Discussion is locked

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Default Programs?
Mar 27, 2011 5:40AM PDT

I'm not sure about web based email like GMail, but as you said you got it to work in XP then I must assume it is possible to do that in Win 7.

Look in the Start Menu for "Default Programs" in the right hand column.

You're going to have to explore this, but at first glance the best option would seem to be the top one, "Set your default programs". If GMail lists, then set that as default.

If that fails, try the bottom option, "Set Program Access and Computer Defaults". You will need to click the double chevrons for more details on each.

See if any of those work for you.

Mark

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We Tried, But
Mar 28, 2011 2:55AM PDT

Thanks for the advice, Mark, but I couldn't seem to convince the computer to change default e-mail from Windows Live to gmail. I guess Microsoft wants me to use Windows Live exclusively. I'll just log onto my gmail program and use "attach file".

Thanks again,

DC

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All may not be lost
Mar 28, 2011 3:58AM PDT

Hi DC.

I did wonder how you got XP to accept GMail as your default mail. These default settings in the OS are for applications, and web-mail is not an application. If you can recall how you did that in XP the same method may work in Windows 7.

However, if you can't find that method now, all is not lost as you still have a few options. Any email software, eg WLM, Thunderbird, to name just two, can be set up to use a GMail account, and then the email would be downloaded to the email software on your computer, as well as still being available from web access. If you don't want to use WLM, have you considered Thunderbird? No registration required, no promotions, just free email access.

GMail has guidance for setting up Thunderbird here; http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=180192

I Googled this; Windows 7 How to set GMAIL as default, and found a few suggestions, like above or using some sort of registry hack, (not something I know and I wouldn't recommend it myself), but I did find something called GMail Notifier;

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=10966

I don't know how that works, but the web site says it makes GMail your default web mail. Personally I am not sure if it gives a 'right click' option for sending photos and such as you stated in your first post, but it does allow GMail to be set as the "MailTo:" for email links in web pages.

Does any of that help?

Mark