Something I still do on my own computers and others’ is adding a shortcut to GMail to the start menu in place of Outlook/Outlook Express/Hotmail. 
This is simple to do with a registy entry and can be enhanced by adding an icon to the shortcut. The icon itself can be stored anywhere you like as long as the registy entry points to it. To do this over and over again when I rebuild my own and other people’s PC’s, I’ve put together a batch file that create the necessary registry entry and copies the icon to the Windows directory (to keep it out of the way like a real icon and since I never have the desire to go modify it). 
Here is the GMail Start Menu shortcut package I’ve made in a .zip file. Use it as you like.
Here are the gritty details if you prefer to set this up manually, instead of using the install package.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Gmail]
@="Gmail"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Gmail\shell]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Gmail\shell\open]
@="Gmail"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Gmail\shell\open\command]
@="rundll32.exe url.dll,FileProtocolHandler http://mail.google.com/mail/"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Gmail\DefaultIcon]
@="%systemroot%\\Gmail.ico"
4 responses so far ↓
1 Lisa Jeffries // Mar 9, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Thanks for sharing! It was simple, easy, and is so very much appreciated and useful
2 Neb // Oct 28, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Thank you so much! It really made my day.
3 David Nowak // May 5, 2011 at 2:33 am
Works great. Thank you.
4 bek // Aug 17, 2011 at 5:09 am
Thank you so much! Was easy even for the less tech savvy like me
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