Outlook Express Sucks
Yes, Outlook Express sucks monkey nuts.
Sadly, there’s not a better email client for Windows .. or at least one that will work with my broken work mailserver.
OE has been taking three to four minutes to start up for a while now, and I just discovered why: it’s attempting to load all of my Instant Messaging clients, and is failing because I’ve manually removed Microsoft Messenger.
In some versions of OE, the option for disabling this ‘feature’ is missing. However, you can edit the registry to prevent OE from attempting to start messaging clients.
More info here.