One of the things we can't do for you is to check your emails to see whether you've won, but we can make it a little easier by showing you how to integrate your free email account with Outlook Express.  The advantage of doing this is you won't have to keep going to your email provider's website - you can use the Outlook Express commands you know and your competition emails are still separate from your other mail.  The way you do this is by setting up a new account in Outlook Express that links to your competition account using 'IMAP'.  If you don't know what IMAP is, don't worry, it's just another way of accessing email.

Here are the step by step instructions with lots of screenshots.  We've assumed your competition account is called "mycomps@xyz.com", which of course yours isn't, so where you see mycomps@xyz.com just substitute your full competition email address.  Where you see just xyz.com, just substitute the part of your competition address after the '@' sign.  You may find it easier to print these instructions before you begin.

Before you start you might want to make sure you have the server name for your outgoing mail handy.  This will be the name provided by your ISP.  You can find it by going into Outlook Express.  Select 'Tools' from the toolbar at the top.  Select 'Accounts...' and you should have a window like this:

Select 'Properties', then select 'Servers' and copy down the value next to 'Outgoing mail (SMTP)'.  This is your outgoing server name.

Now we're ready to create a link in Outlook Express to our competition email account:

We want to create a new email account, so click 'Add' and then choose 'Mail...':

First, enter your name:

Now, enter your competition email address (remember to replace the red text with your full competition email address):

Now we enter the server names.  This is where you'll need your outgoing server name from earlier on.  Don't forget to change the server type to 'IMAP'.:

Now enter your login details.  Your password is the one you use to access your competition emails:

That's it....nearly done.  Click Finish.

Now you will have an additional email account, your original one(s) plus the new account that links to your competition mailbox.  All we need to do now is amend the properties of the competition mailbox so it behaves the way we want it to.   Select your new mailbox on the screen below, and click on 'Properties':

Under the first tab, 'General', make the following changes if required, and click 'Apply':

Under the second tab, 'Servers', make the following changes if required, and click 'Apply':

Under the 'IMAP' tab, make the following changes if required, click 'Apply' and then 'OK':

You will then be asked if you would like to download folders from the mailserver you added.  Click 'Yes'.

You will then be able to select which IMAP folders are visible.  The default is all of them.  Click 'OK'.

OK.  Now we've set up the account, and our Outlook Screen should look like this:

 We just need to amend the options so that deleted mails don't appear with a line through.  Choose the 'Maintenance' tab, and ensure the second checkbox is checked.

And that's everything.  You should now be able to access your competition emails via Outlook Express, and you can of course still access them the old way if you prefer.