w/r Outlook 2003 - Be happy you have that version and not 2007 or 2010. To clean up: View Menu reading pane check "off" to do bar: check "off" Navigation pane: check "normal" Use f6 from now on to move back and forth between the folder tree and the message list You need to get into the habit of pressing the Enter key on a folder in order to have it open in the message list. Simply Tab or f6 will not show you those messages. That should get you started. Dave Composed on a Dell Latitude 630 in the general vicinity of my Audio Recording and Mixing Studios, San Francisco Bay Area. ----- Original Message ----- From: Heather To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 08:35 Subject: really need help with outlook 2003 Hello,I am trying to get back to e-mail after a a week when I had to buy a win7 machine and found that I am forced to use outlook 2003 as outlook express apparently will not be able to function in win7. Can someone please tell me how to simplify outlook instead of having links etc? Are the commands the same and how do I change the message order so the top has the past messages and the bottom has the messages just comming in the box? I know that some claim that you can make outlook express work but, I here it is difficult unless you are good with computers. Also is there an easy program out there like outlook express? So far I find I really don't like microsoft outlook but perhaps if I can simplify the process, it might be easier! Thank you so much! Heather