Sysmetrix can access your email servers...and indicate to you that there's new mail...eg mine currently shows I have 6 ...the accounts it's checking include hotmail...

I use Windows Live Messenger and it gives a pop up whenever an email arrives.  It opens a small window just above where the taskbar is and gives you who, subject and stuff of the email so you know whether you need to go read it.

I would imagine that there are other programs that work the same way if you didn't like or want to use Windows Live Messenger.

Jafo : I must try that ... !

Philly/John ... Ya know , I totally forgot about the Messenger One ... I have not

used it for years , and it works even when I am showing as offline  ...

I mainly use Skype , as the call/voice quality is outstanding ...

Thanks very much , Gentlemen  !! Sho'do preeshyate it !

Mike

Your welcome Mike.

There's an easy-to-use mail notifier available free from DynAdvance.com that will sit in your notification area.

My wife uses Incredimail. http://www.incredimail.com/english/download/ This link is for the free version, but (like most things) you can pay to get more options. Incredimail allows you to choose and customize your notifiers.

I personally like Thunderbird. Thunderbird is free and it notifies you from the taskbar. http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/

Thunderbird is awesome IMHO.  Very configurable, but not always simple to do.  i like to keep my mails on my computer and not leave on the server as I keep a lot of mail and the online accounts can fill up too quickly.

The paid version of Incredimail is nice too.

Pidgin does a good job of letting me know when I have mail.

www.pidgin.im

www.poppeeper.com - You can enable or disable alert

Thunderbird will do this if you install the 'firetray' ad-on. It keeps Thunderbird in your notification tray when you close or minimize it.

There is also PopTray which  is free/open source and works with an unlimited number of accounts. It sits right in your notification area.