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Adding a "New Email Message" Option to the "New" Menu
-- for use with Outlook and Outlook Express --

As most of you probably know, you can easily create an email shortcut for new messages on your hard drive by simply using the mailto: command (for those who don't know, just right click your desktop, choose New>Shortcut and enter mailto: as the command line for your shortcut). Fewer of you might know, however, that you can also add a new Outlook or Outlook Express Message entry to the New Menu, which is the menu you get when you right click a blank area of your Desktop or the inside of any folder. This can be handy for anyone who prefers to write emails without the need to open Outlook or Outlook Express and for anyone who prefers to save their messages on their hard drive instead of in the Inbox.

You can designate folders to hold and organize the emails you write. For example, you can have a folder named Bob which you would use to write and save all emails you send to Bob. You would save your message and then send it. The message would remain in your folder but you would still have a copy of it in your Sent Items folder in Outlook or Outlook Express. Of course, you can also do something similar with the mailto: shortcut but the difference is that with a shortcut you would have to specify a save to location. It's the same difference between right clicking your desktop to create a new text document on your desktop and having a shortcut that opens up notepad. In one, the document is created before you even write anything and the other waits for you to write a document and to specify a save location.

Here are the instructions to add a new email message entry to the New menu.

1. Open Outlook Express or Outlook and open a new email message. You can leave it blank or add whatever signature or text you want to appear whenever a new message is opened via the New Menu entry (in effect, you are creating a new message template)

2 Click File > Save As and save the file with a name like Blank.eml if you are using Outlook Express or Blank.msg if you are using Outlook. The blank message must be saved in the SHELLNEW folder which you will find in your Windows or WINNT directory. Be sure to note it's location.

3. Click Start>Run and type in RegEdit to launch the Registry Editor.
Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and scroll down the list of file extensions till you find the eml key (for Outlook Express) or the msg key (for Outlook)

4. Right click the eml or msg key and create, if it doesn't exist, a new key named ShellNew.

5. Right click on an empty area in the right hand pane for the ShellNew key, and create a New String Value named FileName.

6. Double-click the FileName icon and in the Value Data box, type C:\Windows\ShellNew\Blank.eml if you are using Outlook Express or C:\Windows\ShellNew\Blank.msg if you are using Outlook.  (Replace Windows with WINNT if that is the directory where your shellnew folder is located.)

7.  Click OK and exit the Registry Editor. You are now done.

To test it out:

1.  Right-click the Desktop or the inside of any folder and choose New.  A new entry titled "Outlook Express Mail Message" or "Outlook Item" should now be there.

2.  Click the entry and a new message icon waiting to be named should appear on your desktop or in your folder

3.  Name it, open it and type your message.

When you're done, click File>Save (if you want to save it before sending) or just click Send if you don't want to save it on your hard drive. In either case, a copy of your message will be saved in the Sent Items folder in Outlook Express or Outlook.

Note that deleting the message in your folder will not delete the copy in your Sent Items folder.

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Vic Ferri owns the very popular WinTips and Tricks and Registry Answers. Subscribe to either and receive free Windows and Registry Tips. He is also in charge of the Printing Tips pages at Linda's Computer Stop. Vic has also created a program which allows you to Lock & Hide desktop folders in Windows 9X/ME. Read more and get the free demo here. And, he now offers a service to convert PowerPoint presentations to .exe files which can be viewed on computers which do not have PowerPoint installed.