My friend is running Win XP Pro, is on BellSouth DSL and also still using AOL. He just can't bring himself to cancel AOL and uninstall it. Just wanted to pass on this info should it have any bearing on his problem. He still has AOL mail and also Outlook Express mail, naturally with different addresses. His problem is he can't set his font and size in Outlook Express. He goes to Tools>Options>Compose>Font Settings, selects Arial font, Regular, and 12 pt. Size, the Example box displays the correct selection, he clicks OK, the Choose Font window displays the correct choice, then he clicks Apply, then OK. Then he clicks Create Mail and the font and size show Arial 10 pt. No matter what he chooses he always ends up with Aerial 10 pt. He can highlight his text in a letter and change it to 12 pt at that time. I know he is using the correct procedure because I'm running the same setup (without AOL) and when I go through the same steps to change my font or size and then compose a letter I get what I selected. Anyone have any ideas on why his Outlook Express is stuck on Arial 10 pt.

This was an OE 5 and 5.5 issue...
Click <Tools/Options/Read Tab> Select <Fonts> on bottom left screen, select the proper font set as shown below and set them to "Medium". Click on "set as default".



Also, I am not sure if you have to set OE to be the default mail service.

Chris

Forgot to say: close Outlook Express and restart it.

I have IE 6 but I can tell you what I do and maybe you can find the similiar setting in IE 5 or 5.5 whichever version you have. After I set up my computer, I went to Tools > Internet Options > General and down at the bottom in the History section I see 4 buttons named Colors, Fonts, Languages, and Accessibilities. I go to Fonts and I choose Kristen ITC and click OK. Then I click on the Accessibilities button and I put a check mark by these two items: Ignore Font Styles Specified On Web Pages and Ignore Font Sizes Specified on Web Pages. Then I click OK and go to OE and go to Options and under the Read tab, I go to the Fonts button on the lower left hand side. I click on Fonts and I choose Kristen ITC and then I choose Largest and I click on Set as Default and then I click OK and OK again. Then I re-start the computer.

Thanks guys. I'll be over at my friend's house in the next couple days and will try out your instructions. I'll let you know later if we're succesful.