(FORTUNE Magazine) – Whatever you may think of Microsoft, you have to admit that the company learns from its mistakes. Which is a good thing, because it makes so many.

Consider Outlook, the do-it-all information manager with integrated E-mail, calendar, address book, and to-do list. The original release, which shipped with Office 97, was a bloated dog that slowed computers to a crawl and drove users crazy with bugs. Microsoft listened to complaints, and Outlook 98--now available for downloading free--is a slick program indeed. It's lean, fast, and easy to use.

The best thing about Outlook 98 is how it effortlessly integrates its various parts. Let's say you start your day by reading E-mail from Joe Doakes. With two clicks of the mouse, you call up his file in your contact list, where you notice that his birthday is a couple of weeks away. Two more mouse clicks, and your phone--if it's connected to your PC--is dialing Joe's. A few minutes later, after you and Joe have set up a lunch to celebrate his birthday and discuss a business deal, you type in a quick note and pop the appointment into your calendar. Two months later, when you're finalizing the fabulous deal you cooked up over lunch, you can call up a history showing every contact you and Joe have had, and every document you exchanged.

At the heart of Outlook is a terrific E-mail program that displays a list of messages in a panel atop your screen, a list of folders for organizing messages on the left side, and the contents of each message in a panel at the bottom. It's easy to sort messages by sender, subject, or date. All you do is click on the appropriate field at the top of the list. Organizing messages from particular people or on specific subjects or projects is also a breeze. Simply set up a folder and drag over the message's subject header.

Outlook also makes it a snap to filter and organize mail as it arrives. You can have junk mail sent directly to the trash bin. More important, mail from the boss can be flagged with a high-priority icon and sent directly to a "Boss" folder. You can even have a warning box pop up to alert you whenever His Eminence sends a message. And if you leave a priority message unread, Outlook will nag you till you give it the once-over.

When you get mail from a new correspondent, adding the sender to your contact list takes just two mouse clicks. The contact manager is far more than just names and E-mail addresses; it's a complete database that records home and business addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers, birthdays, anniversaries, spouses' names, and a variety of other information.

Outlook's calendar, to-do list, and scheduling programs are also first-rate. Microsoft claims the program is compatible with most corporate E-mail programs and directories, but be careful. Very careful. When a couple of us installed Outlook 98 on our PCs at work, it not only refused to run but also trashed our versions of Lotus cc:Mail. The information systems department was not amused. They're still not amused. So be smart and check with your administrator before trying Outlook at the office.

Some people will find that Outlook 98 suffers from feature overkill. If you learn everything there is to know about this program, you're probably wasting time that you should spend doing what you get paid to do. But that's a management problem, not a software glitch. Overall, Microsoft has really delivered with this version of Outlook 98.

Through the end of June, you can download Outlook at no charge from Microsoft at www.microsoft.com/outlook. The files are so large, however, that they can take forever to download. Dial-up Internet users might want to pony up $14.95 and order the CD version online. After June 30, Outlook 98 will be available only to registered users of Office 97, Outlook 97, or Exchange Server.