there is no reason to read about the tune-up for this program if you haven't learned yet about Windows itself - Cyrillic fonts and Russian encodings. It is covered in a section of my site called "Cyrillic fonts and encodings under Windows".
That is, it's assumed that you have your Cyrillic fonts activated and become familiar with Cyrillic encodings used under MS Windows.

It's also assumed that you have Russian keyboard tools activated as described in the "Russian Keyboard" section of my site, if you are going to write in Russian in Outlook Express.

Abbreviation OE is used below for Outlook Express.
 
 

First, a very short instruction for one special category of OE users.
If a person needs to use Russian in OE only from time to time, pretty seldom, then such person does not need to perform a full, complete tune-up of OE to Russian described below on this page. That is:

• user is not going to work with Russian language Newsgroups at all

  and also
  

• user does send and receive Russian e-mails, but not often.
  That is, even if s/he will not be able to read Cyrillic in the e-mail Subjects list (because the full tune-up was not done), it's no problem - s/he will click on the Subject of one e-mail s/he needs to read and will be able to see normal Cyrillic in the Subject line by looking at the the grey area in the middle os the screen.

Then such user does not need a complete tune-up and can make Russian work only when needed - each time s/he sends or receives Russian e-mail:

• Reading Russian e-mail in Inbox:
  

  In the menu, do View/Encoding/Cyrillic(KOI8-R), and if it's still unreadable, then try another Russian encoding: View/Encoding/Cyrillic(Windows)

• Sending Russian e-mail via New Mail or Reply:
  

  In the menu of a message composition window, do Format/Encoding/Cyrillic(KOI8-R) and only then start typing.

  (as it's explained in the "Cyrillic fonts and encodings" section of my site, Russian messages should 'travel' over the Internet being in the network encoding KOI8-R to be readable by any Russian recipient on any computer platform).

   
  By the way, if a user does not do the above change in Format menu, then s/he may produce those famous messages where one sees only question marks ('?') instead of Russian letters.
  This sender could see it immediately - by looking into the SENT folder.

  The reason is that an input pane is a Unicode window and works as Word 97/2000 - language changes when keyboard mode changes: "RU" - input Russian, "EN" - English, etc.
  During the input, the currently selected in OE encoding does not play any role.
  Most of such users have "Western" as a current encoding.

  Now, the input is over and a user clicks on "Send". At this time currently selected encoding is critical:

  • the text that user typed is a Unicode text. Now OE needs to convert this text to the currently selected encoding
  • OE is trying to convert from Unicode to "Western".
    Unlike Unicode, "Western" does not contain Cyrillic letters, and thus OE inserts regular question marks ('?') instead of Russian letters. Placing a question mark means the following:
    "Symbol is not found in the target encoding".

  If this user had a current encoding that does contain Cyrillic (Unicode(UTF-8), Cyrillic(KOI8-R), Cyrillic(Windows)), then it would be no question marks instead of Russian letters, because the conversion would end successfully.

  
  
  Note. The above (choosing KOI8-R in Format menu) is for sending messages with Russian+English in them. If you need to send a letter with any other language text, for instance, Russian/English + Polish and/or German, and/or Greek, etc. then the only way to do it is to send a Unicode message instead of a Cyrillic message:

  In the menu of a message composition window, do Format/Encoding/Unicode(UTF-8) and only then start typing.

  For the situation with only Russian+English in a message, using Unicode is not recommended - there is no need to use it while it may make message unreadable by some e-mail programs that don't understand Unicode.

If you belong to this category of users (that is, you do not need to read Russian in the list of Subjects, it's Okay for you to switch to Russian only when needed), then you do not need to read further, because below I offer a full, complete tune-up for Russian in OE, where Russian is selected as a Default Encoding of OE.

Russian as Default in Outlook Express ver. 5 and later
(lets you read the list of Subjects, no need to choose Russian each time you send e-mail, etc.)

If you want to use Russian in OE 5, then you should not use the very first version of it - OE 5.0:
there was a known software error in that version and Russian was unreadable in the Subjects list.

This error was fixed in the next release - OE 5.01.

To figure out what version you have - 5.0 or 5.01 - just go to Help/About:
OE 5.01 begins from the modification number 5.0.2919.xxxx, while all modifications with smaller numbers - (5.00.2314.xxxx, 5.0.2417.xxxx) mean that it is that 5.0 version with the error.

I was not able to find OE 5.01 on Microsoft site, but found it on the following site - "FTP.MTU.RU - IE 5.01".

That is, if currently you have Internet Explorer/Outlook Express 5.0, then you may want to install 5.01, instead - download everything from the above site and then run ie5setup.exe.

You may want to do differently - switch from your IE/OE 5.0 to a newer version - 5.5 or 6.0.
But beware that Outlook Express ver. 5.5 and higher introduced again a problem of unreadable Subjects in the list - 5.01 does not have such problem!
The problem (unreadable Cyrillic in the list of Subjects) exists only under Windows 95/98/ME, where Cyrillic is not a System Code Page, for example, regular English Windows 98.
It does not exist under Windows NT 4.0/2000/XP.

This problem of the newer versions is described below on this page, in the section "OE 5.5+ problem under Windows 95/98/ME".

So, don't rush to install IE/OE 5.5, see first if it's Ok for you to do.
May be you'll find out that you should not do it and need to get just 5.01.

 
Necessary note regarding MIME because MIME is present in OE setup menus.
Generally, MIME is a 7-bit coding of some 8-bit text.
MIME-encoded Cyrillic text of a Subject of a message would look like this, for instance:
Subject: =?koi8-r?B?8NLP18XSy8E=?=

and then a client program, for example, OE or Netscape decodes such incoming text into a normal 8-bit Russian text.

MIME-coding can be used for both Subject of a message and its 'body'.

It is possible to ask OE to use MIME only in a internal, system part of a message header and do not encode 'body' of that message into a MIME-based text.
There is still a big advantage in such use of MIME: system header then will contain the information about character encoding of this message.
System header, while using MIME, will contain a line where Russian encoding is specified, for example

   MIME-Version: 1.0
   Content-Type: text/plain; charset="koi8-r"
   ...

Here are my step-by-step instructions for Russian in Outlook Express ver. 5.01 and up (for Russian in Netscape Mail/News see a link to my instruction at the bottom of this page):

1. Setup for reading Russian messages

In OE menu, go to Tools/Options/Read, and there:
• click on "Fonts" and:
  • choose Cyrillic in the "Font Settings" list
  • "Encoding" - choose Cyrillic(KOI8-R) there
  • click on "Set As Default" button at the right of "Default Encoding"

• click on "International Settings" and:
  • make sure that you have there "Cyrillic(KOI8-R)"
  • make sure that you do not have a check mark in the "Use Default Encoding for all incoming messages"
    (there is no need to mark it and moreover, checking this box may cause some problems with Cyrillic encodings)

 
2. Setup for sending Russian messages

Go to Tools/Options/Send, and there:
• click on "International Settings" and:
• make sure that you have there "Cyrillic(KOI8-R)" as "Default Encoding"
• make sure that you place a check mark next to "When Replying to message always use English headers"

(it's not for message text, it's for system headers)
• in the frame "Mail Sending Format":
• choose "Plain Text"
• click on "Plain Text Settings" and:
• choose MIME for "Message Format"
  (then a system header will contain a usefull information about Cyrillic encoding of the message - the line with charset=koi8-r)
• choose "None" for "Encode text using" (it's for message's 'body').
  This means, "do not apply MIME coding to the 'body' of the message", send message text 'as is'.

(it's no need to MIME-encode your message's 'body', the main thing is that MIME itself is selected, so useful Cyrillic encoding information (charset=koi8r) will be included into the system header of the message)
• Now, let's look at the field "Allow 8 bit characters in headers"

This is about MIME-encoding of a Subject line of your message.
Leave it unchecked (then Subject will be sent as MIME-coded text), it's useful.

 

• in the frame "News Sending Format":
• choose "Plain Text"
• click on "Plain Text Settings" and:
• choose MIME for "Message Format"

(then a system header will contain a usefull information about Cyrillic encoding of the message - the line with charset=koi8-r)
• choose "None" for "Encode text using" (it's for message's 'body')
  This means, "do not apply MIME coding to the 'body' of the message".
  The message's 'body' then will be sent 'as is'.
  (the main thing is that we did select MIME usage, so a system header will contain a useful information about Cyrillic encoding of the message)

• Now, let's look at the field "Allow 8 bit characters in headers"

This is about MIME-encoding of a Subject line of your message.
Leave it unchecked (then Subject will be sent as MIME-coded text), it's useful.
For example, when a News program shows you a list of Subjects (i.e. messages themselfs, their 'bodies' - where system header is - were not loaded yet) it still can figure out how to show a Subject because MIME-coded Subject contains a name of Character Encoding.

Important Note.
Outlook Express loads a list of Subjects for some Newsgroup only once.
That is, if you visited some Russian language Newsgroup before following the above instructions (that is, when your Default Encoding was not Cyrillic), then the list of Subjects has been already loaded and thus may still be unreadable even after you make Cyrillic your Default.
You need to force OE to re-load the list of Subjects for this new Default to take an effect:

• Click on the name of such Newsgroup and choose Unsubscribe
• Close Outlook Express
• Open Outlook Express and Subscribe to this Newsgroup again - OE will then create a new list of Subjects using your new Default Encoding while building that list.

The above was a description of an initial, one-time tune-up for OE.
Now, after that tune-up is done, you work with OE this way:

• Reading
  Most Russian language Newsgroups, as well as e-mail messages, are in Cyrillic(KOI8-R). Such messages (and their Subjects in the list) will be readable now at once.

  Note. Many people use Web-based e-mail services where, instead of using a specialized e-mail program, they type a letter on a Web page such as Yahoo! Mail .
  Such services do not let a user to specify the encoding of an e-mail, so even if you switch to Cyrillic(KOI8-R) in your browser and type in Russian on such Web page, your e-mail still specifies "Western" encoding charset=iso-8859-1 in the system header of the e-mail.

  Such incoming letter is readable in OE - just change the encoding:
  View/Encoding/KOI8-R or, if it does not help (i.e. sender used Cyrillic(Windows) in the browser), try View/Encoding/Cyrillic(Windows).

  But only the text itself becomes readable:
  if Cyrillic is used in the Subject, then it will not be readable in the List of Subjects:
  there OE strictly conforms to the encoding specified in the system header of the e-mail and thus shows you this line using "Western" font.
  You can see readable Subject, though, in the grey pane in the middle of the screen.

  
  
  If some message you ran into is not in KOI8-R encoding, but, say, in Cyrillic(Windows), then you need to select that encoding to read it:

  View/Encoding/Cyrillic(Windows) - in main window

  Format/Encoding/Cyrillic(Windows) - after you open that one e-mail in its own window

  But even then in Newsgroups a Subject of such message will remain unreadable in the list of Subjects
  (unless Windows-1251 is specified in the Subject line itself, i.e. MIME is used in Subject field - then OE aknowledges this while building the lsit):

  as it was already mentioned, OE builds such list for a Newsgroup only once using the Default encoding, and nothing can be changed later via the menu.
  You can see readable Subject, though, in the grey pane in the middle of the screen when you click on such message.
  It's not really a big problem, because in any given Russian language Newsgroup most messages are in one encoding, and only one or two per hundred are in a different encoding.
  So, for these couple messages it's Ok to click on them to read their Subject, it's not like you have to click on any other message to read the Subject.

  By the way, if you work with a Newsgroup where all (or most) messages are not in KOI8-R, but in, say, Cyrillic(Windows), then you need to make Cyrillic(Windows) encoding your Default by following the instruction given above for KOI8-R.
  You need to do the same if most of your e-mail messages are in Cyrillic(Windows) and not in KOI8-R.

  
  
  

• Send - New Mail or Reply
  Nothing needs to be done in the New Mail case - KOI8-R was selected as a Default Encoding and thus it's already chosen to be used in the message preparation window - you can see it in the blue title bar of that window.

  Reply is a little bit different and you need to be careful:
  when you Reply, Outlook Express sets in the message preparation window an encoding used in the original message and not the Default Encoding.
  (really, OE uses the current encoding of that message - if you changed already the original encoding of that message in Inbox or in Newsgroup window, then this encoding will be set by OE in the message preparation window)

  For example, you've got e-mail sent from a Web-based service such as Yahoo! Mail or HotMail. As it was mentioned, such e-mail specifies encoding="Western" in it system header. And thus when you hit Reply, OE sets "Western" as a current encoding of your message preparation window.
  (By the way, in the case of "Western" you will not see any encoding name in that blue title bar).

  So, when you Reply, you must look what encoding is specified in that blue title bar of your message preparation window: if there is no encoding name (it means, the encoding is "Western") or you see there some encoding name but not KOI8-R, then you need to switch to KOI8-R:

  Format/Encoding/Cyrillic(KOI8-R) and only then start typing.

  (You need to do the same if you decided to use another Russian encoding as Default, for example, Windows(Cyrillic):
  you must check whether this encoding is set in the message preparation window when you Reply and if it's not - change the encoding)

  By the way, if you will not be careful during Reply and forget to change the encoding if it's an incorrect one, OE may present you a warning "Message Character Set Conflict".
  In such case, just click on "Cancel" there, return back to your message and choose correct encoding.
  Because if you select, in this warning dialog, "Send As Is" option, then you may produce the e-mail with only question marks ('?') instead of Russian:
  if the encoding that is set in the message preparation window does not contain Cyrillic letters, then OE does let you type in Russian, but after you click on Send, it will replace all Cyrillic letters with '?'.
  You could see it immediately - by looking into the SENT folder.
  The explanation for this situation was given at the top of this page.

  
  
  NOTE. All of the above written for the SEND mode (New Mail or Reply) is based in the assumption that in your text contains Russian+English only.
  If you have any other language there, for instance, Russian/English + Polish and/or German, and/or Greek, etc. then the only way to do it is to send a Unicode message instead of a Cyrillic message:

  In the menu of a message composition window, do Format/Encoding/Unicode(UTF-8) and only then start typing.

  For the situation with only Russian+English in a message, using Unicode is not recommended - there is no need to use it while it may make message unreadable by some e-mail programs that don't understand Unicode.

In the environment described below, Cyrillic is not readable in the list of Subjects.
That is, even after you make KOI8-R your default and then open a Newsgroup list, KOI8-R text in the List of Subjects will not be readable!

Here is a description of the environment where this OE 5.5 problem occurs:

  Windows 95/98/ME where Cyrillic is not a main system code page.

• U.S version of Windows 95 (really, any version except Russian Windows 95) where a full, system-level Russification was not performed.
• Non-Russian version of Windows 98, where Russian was not selected as a main language/region.
  That is, a user, while installing Windows 98, did not go to the Custom option where s/he could select Region=Russia and other things to make Russian a main system code page.

That is, it's a non-Russian version of Windows 95/98/ME where a user did not perform a full, system-level Russification making Russian a main system code page and thus replacing non-Russian system fonts (.fon files) with Russian system fonts.

(Russification on the user-level does not play any role here. That is, the problem still exists if a user of such system activates user-level package "Multilanguage Support")

That is, it's the same environment, where one can not see Cyrillic in the interface (menus, dialogs, Help, etc.) of some software made in Russia or Russian file names on some music CD-ROM.
That environment and the methods of full, system-level Russification are discussed on my site in a section "More Russification. Q&A".

If the above is not your environment, then you will not have such problem and can stop reading this page - below I have a solution for this specific problem and that's it.

So, what to do if you work under such Windows 95/98/ME and use OE ver. 5.5 or higher and therefore can not see Russian in the Subjects list (and thus can not use a Russian Newsgroup)?

  You should use a free Plug-In to Outlook Express 5.x+ (no such Plug-In for ver. 4.x of OE) called Fidolook Express, that will solve this problem and any other language-specific problems.
This Plug-In is being developed by Russian programmer Andrey No and makes OE a real multilingual application.

You will need to start Fidolook Express and not Outlook Express. Fidolook Express will call OE itself and then they will work as one application.

NOTE. There is a special Russian language Newsgroup devoted to this program where people report the bugs and the author responds:
fido7.pvt.fidolook.
You can also read this Newsgroup, for example, using Web-based News service Talk.ru.

Here is an MS Help file for Fidolook Express (in Russian):
fl_help.zip

Here is my instruction for Fidolook Express usage:

1. Create a directory (folder) on your hard drive to store the files of Fidolook Express
2. Download and open - extract files - (for instance using WinZip) the archive containing all files:
   FidolookLite.zip
   (if your browser will not show you Save As dialog, then do it differently - click on the above link with the right button of your mouse and choose "Save Target As" or "Save Link As")

3. Start the program - fidolook2.exe (and in the future start this file when you need to work with OE, instead of calling OE itself)

4. You will see that Outlook Express is being called and then you'll see a new, added panel of Fidolook Express that contains its menus.
5. In the Fidolook Express menu go to Misc/Setup Miscellaneous/Message List and:
• place a check mark next to "Multilanguage Support for Message List"
• place a check mark next to "Include not downloaded", to have Russian readable immediately when the list of Subject is displayed and not only after you click on some message.
• place a check mark next to "Include column 'From'", to have Cyrillic readable in the sender name field.
6. In the menu, go to Templates/Setup Extended Templates and place a check mark next to "Totally do not use Fidolook Style Templates", to use your Signature that you selected in OE itself.
   Otherwise Fidolook Express would choose one of the common signatures used in the Russian network Fido7.

Now Cyrillic becomes readable in the Subject list of OE folders such as Inbox.
For the Newsgroups the situation is a little bit different - as I mentioned above, OE loads a list of Subject for a Newsgroup only once so even with Fidolook Express some previously visited Newsgroups may have unreadable Subjects in the list. In such case you need to apply the method described in the general OE setup above:
Unsubscribe from such Newsgroup and then subscribe to it again to force OE to create a new list of Subjects.