Internet Explorer Pinned Sites' First Cool Feature: Hotmail New Message Count
Microsoft added a feature to pin websites in Internet Explorer 9. Users who run the Windows 7 or later versions of the operating system are currently the only ones who can make use of that option.
You may recall that Windows 7 users can pin programs, files and other data to the Windows taskbar for faster access. Integrated there is a feature called jumplists that allow you to access often used tasks or a history with a right-click on the taskbar icon.
Those icons until now have been static. If you pin Outlook to the taskbar you see the Outlook icon and that's it. While that has not changed for applications yet, a first step was made today that demonstrates the capabilities of the taskbar.
Internet Explore 9 users on Windows 7 who pin the email service Hotmail to the taskbar see a new message count directly on the taskbar's icon. No need to open Hotmail anymore to check for new messages, a single glance at the taskbar icon is enough to see if you have got new emails, or not.
You still need to be logged into Hotmail to make use of the new feature which essentially means that Internet Explorer 9 needs to be open as well.
This is probably the biggest drawback for users who do not use Microsoft's latest web browser as their default browser. IE9 users on the other hand who use a Hotmail account will likely make good use of the feature.
To pin the Hotmail website to the taskbar you can either drag and drop the Hotmail tab to it, or the Hotmail favicon that is displayed in front of the website address. The unread message count appears automatically whenever you are logged into Hotmail in Internet Explorer 9. The count is updated automatically when you read emails, when new emails arrive or you perform other actions that have an effect on the number of unread messages.
It would be great if Microsoft, and other desktop email developers, could integrate a similar feature for desktop email clients such as Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird. Does anyone know if that is a possibility?
A right-click on the Hotmail icon displays links to tasks such as the Inbox, Calendar, Contacts or the send email form. Users who have pinned Hotmail to the taskbar before need to unpin and re-pin the website to get the new feature.
It is also not clear at this point in time if the feature is available for all Hotmail users and email accounts. I for instance could not get it to work with a third-party email address configured in Hotmail.
You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!