I didn't know that MSN users were forced to use Exchange

They're not. Outlook. Outlook is the client.

Exchange is the backend (And if someone can tell me that they're running MSN 100% on Exchange, I'll be surprised). There is an Exchange client, but Outlook is usually installed.

Outlook supports (for some value of support) POP and IMAP.

Does any other ISP force their customers to use a certain mail program?

I don't think that they *force* it, do they? Or do they *not support* other programs? I know of a lot of ISP's (granted, not with a monopoly in desktop OSes) who only support one, or two programs.

Addison