But da6151 has a problem: the default font for reading messages is too small. "My senior eyes have a hard time reading it, unless I copy [the text] to Word where I can select the Font size."

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that this is a known issue, one that many other users have encountered. There's even some evidence that it was caused by Internet Explorer 9, which is the kind of thing that makes me smack my forehead and consider, however briefly, ditching Windows for a Mac. (Come to think of it, this really doesn't qualify as good news at all.)

The bad news is that there's no known fix--not that I've been able to uncover, anyway. There are font-size settings in Windows Live Mail, but they don't seem to do any good--not for reading e-mail. (If you click the blue Menu button in the upper-right corner, then Options, Mail, Read, Fonts, you'll see a Font Size selector. On my system, bumping it to Larger or Largest made absolutely no difference in the visible font size--and other users have reported the same thing. Come on, Microsoft, really?)

So, what's the solution? I'm afraid I don't have one. But I'm going to throw this out to the readers, who tend to be a lot smarter than I am. If you've encountered this problem and, hopefully, found a fix, please leave a comment for your fellow user!

Contributing Editor writes about business and consumer technology. Ask for help with your PC hassles at , or try the treasure trove of helpful folks in the .