I am far from a Windows/Microsoft booster, but they do make some products that I like, daresay enjoy, using. Outlook was not among them, until very recently. (They are SQL server and Access, that is about it)
I am in an Exchange environment at work, so we use Outlook for our email client/scheduler/task tracker. This is the first job where I was exposed to Outlook and I wasn’t impressed.
Enter Outlook 2003
Yesterday I installed Outlook 2003 onto my XP machine here at work, and I must say I am totally digging it.
The user interface is much improved, but the best feature is search folders. Basically this is a folder that is a saved query or view of your messages. So you can have all unread messages show up in one no matter what folder the message may be in and they will show up in your search folder, even though they are in a different folder.
Read about the 5 features Microsoft thinks you will like here.