for the brain trust: email clients?

[cellio]

Dear LJ brain trust,

Can anybody suggest an email client that runs on Windows 7 that satisfies all of the following requirements?

• Can talk to an Exchange server. (I don't know what version; let me know if that matters.)
  
• Is not Outlook 2003 (no longer supported by the IT department), nor Outlook 2007 (supported but unworkable).¹
  
• Allows the setting of font size for all views (headers, reading messages, composing messages, folder names...).
  
• Can be set to render all email in plain text, but allows some escape hatch for when you really do need the HTML/rich-text formatting to make sense of something (like when somebody formats a message with tables or different font colors or something).
  
• Either uses system colors (text, background) or supports this configuration directly.
  
• Supports saving to folders.
  
• Has some migration path for my ~5GB of email in Outlook PST files. (Since this is a one-time operation it can be a separate tool; there just has to be a way to get there.)
  
• Isn't from a known-suspicious source (it has to get past corporate IT).

I'll also need something in the way of a calendar (send/receive meeting invitations and that sort of stuff), which is probably part of the email client but I'm ok with a separate solution there if one exists.

¹ One big problem with Outlook 2007 is that it puts this huge bright-light-blue border around everything, which for someone in a reverse-video scheme is sort of like being out for a late-night walk far from city lights when somebody comes along and shines a full-power Coleman lantern in your eyes. Outlook 2010 does improve on this: you can make it a huge-bright-light-gray border instead. Near as I can tell, everything rooted in the Windows "Aero" theme is pure evil, and this is.

Thanks!

Comments

[talvinm.livejournal.com]

I bailed on Windows years ago. But for as long as I was forced to use it, I used Pegasus Mail, which I was surprised to find is still available at pmail.com

I have no idea if it supports the features you want, but it has the advantages of longevity, and I remember it fondly.

[dsrtao]

Does your IT group offer OWA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlook_Web_App ?

If so, does it meet your needs, or can it do so with appropriate CSS or GreaseMonkey hacks?

Exchange is a festering boil at the best of times, and I don't allow it in my company, so I don't actually know any of these things from first hand experience.

[cellio]

Not currently offered, but I plan to investigate it. Thanks for the tip!

I wish I had the option to not allow Exchange in my company. :-)