How to replace Outlook with Thunderbird

[Bankebihari]

I have Microsoft Outlook Express 2003 in my computer and recently I am facing some problems with it. Someone suggested me to replace Outlook and use Thunderbird. Now I want to ask is - Is there anybody who is using Thunderbird ? Which one is better : Outlook or Thunderbird ? And how to replace Outlook with Thunderbird ?

Any ideas .....

[Macarenas]

First, download and install Thunderbird. If Thunderbird is already installed and running, check your Outlook settings, and duplicate them in the appropriate places in Thunderbird's email setup panels. Tools|Options|Account Settings. If Thunderbird asks you to choose email or newsgroups, choose email, then progressively fill the necessary information in the panels that follow.
I don't exactly have an idea how imap looks like, but pop accounts usually begin with mail.<domain>.xxx or pop3.<domain>.xxx

[chroma]

I am using Thunderbird right now, after I had faced problems with Outlook regarding IMAP mail stores. Thunderbird offers very flexible and robust IMAP handling as well as providing a way to work with Exchange mail… so that’s what I am using right now.
Note - In Thunderbird, you'll loose all the office integration and scheduling capabilities. but that was OK for me as I wasn't using any of those capabilities.

[Raine]

In Thunderbird, the most essential and missing feature is a fully functional calendar. But, Lightning is a better calendar than Outlook’s calendar because it natively handles iCal compliant web calendars.
Combined with Google Calendar and the Provider for Google Calendar extension, this will enable two-way calendar synchronization between your computer and Google Calendar.
But, the really useful part is that you can now easily synchronize your calendar across several computers, and through Goosync, most mobile devices for free.