One of you brainboxes must know, any help appreciated.

I had the same problem. Initially thought I needed a string (code) to run the "Create new e-mail" command for Outlook but I didn't. I did a few things that eventually made it work but I don't know for certain which one it was so here goes.

1.) Go to Control Panel and click on Internet Properties. Go to the Programs tab and double-check that Outlook Express is your default e-mail client. (This is probably for IE).

2. Close Outlook Express. Select the RUN command from the Start Menu and type the following: <msimn /reg>. Only type the info between the brackets. Click the OK button and wait about 5 seconds. Nothing will happen on screen but the information is being silently written to the registry.

3. Open Outlook Express and to the Tools Menu. Select Options. On the General tab, look down to the Default Messaging Programs. More than likely, to top option will say that "This application is NOT the default Mail handler" Click the button next to it that says "Make Default". This should trigger an available option in Firefox below if it was not already available.

4. In Firefox, go to the Tools menu. Select Options. Click on Applications. Under the column, "Content Type" look for the mailto function. In the column Action, select "Use Outlook Express (default)" if it is not already selected. "(default)" must be part of the phrase. Somehow there is code behind this option that will bring up a new e-mail in Outlook that otherwise does not work if Outlook is selected manually. (To choose Outlook manually, you will indeed have to find the string code somewhere.)