How do I set what email program my system uses?

No real ideas on what happened, but I do have some ideas on what needs fixing.

To begin with, I’m guessing that you do, indeed, have at least one more email client than just Thunderbird on your machine.

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Since you mention that you have Office, then it’s likely that you also have Outlook, the email program that is part of Office. Since you’re getting asked about Exchange, that tends to support that assumption, since Outlook is one of only a handful of email programs that even know about Exchange.

Nope, the problem here is that somehow your default email program got reset. Often this might be due to an update to Office – perhaps downloading the latest patches, or performing a repair install.

Or something else unrelated. It happens.

And if this is the problem, it’s fairly easy to fix.

In Windows XP, hit the Start button and then click on Set Program Access and Defaults:

(If not on your start menu, you’ll also find it in Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, in the left hand column.)

Typically you’ll use a “Custom” configuration, and then select your default e-mail program:

The dialog should include your currently installed email programs. My desktop, for example, includes the options shown above plus both Microsoft Office Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird.

Windows Vista has a similar, but more clearly named “Default Programs” interface:

Once the program has been re-associated with its default functions, it should start to behave as you expect. (You may need to restart all the programs involved such as Word and Thunderbird. In the worst case you might need to reboot to have the changes take effect, but I’d hope not.)