Make your start menu email Link point to Hotmail email

By default when you open your start menu there will be a link to a default email program. This link usually points to either Microsoft Outlook or Windows Mail. If you do not use either of these programs then you can make that Email icon link to some other email client like Thunderbird or even Windows Live which is Hotmail. 

Here’s how to make your start menu email Link point to Hotmail email:

For this example we will presume that your link in the start menu is pointing to Microsoft Office Outlook E-mail and you would like it to link to Windows Live Mail (Hotmail). See in the screenshot below. The link clearly says Microsoft Office Outlook underneath it.

• Right click your mouse on the start button in the bottom left corner and a menu will pop up. This works for Windows XP also, but the start menu just looks a bit different.
• Choose Properties from the menu. See the screenshot below.
• The taskbar and start menu properties will appear. Make sure you are on the Start Menu tab.
• Click on the Customize button.

• The customize start menu box will open. Go down to where it says E-mail Link and place a tick in the box.
• Then click the drop down arrow to see your choices of email programs to link to. As you can see I am going to choose Windows Live mail which is hotmail. See the screenshot below.

• Select the one you want and click OK. That box will disappear.
• Click OK on the next box also.

See the result below. Now when I click on the link to open email it will take me to the Hotmail Windows Live email homepage. That is a lot easier than opening an internet browser, then finding the hotmail webpage and then checking your email.