Featured Smartphone Edition E-Mail Question:

  Along with miscellaneous applications and utilities included on the CD-ROM that ships with your Windows Mobile Smartphone, there are two specific applications on the disc necessary for you to get the most out of your smartphone. The two applications are ActiveSync and Outlook.

ActiveSync is the program that makes synchronization between your smartphone (or Windows Mobile Pocket PC) and Windows PC possible. ActiveSync allows e-mail, contacts, appointments, tasks, notes, and more to be moved back and forth between handheld and computer.  It also allows programs to be installed on the smartphone from within Windows. Without ActiveSync, there is no communication between your smartphone and desktop or laptop.

Outlook is a Windows Personal Information Management (PIM) program that allows you to check your e-mail, keep a schedule, manage your contacts, keep up with projects and tasks, take notes, etc.  Outlook is ActiveSync's Windows software partner; the information stored in Outlook is that which is synced with your smartphone and vice versa.  Without Outlook, you can connect your smartphone to your PC for installing software, but you cannot perform basic PIM synchronization functions as they were intended by Microsoft.

ActiveSync can be downloaded (ActiveSync 3.8 / ActiveSync 4.2) free of charge from Microsoft at any time. Outlook, on the other hand, is an application you paid for when you bought your smartphone and cannot be legally downloaded for free online. 

If you've lost the disc that Outlook came on, you have two options:  you can contact your smartphone's manufacturer - like Audiovox, Cingular, Samsung, etc. - or you can purchase another copy.