Trouble with Microsoft Office Outlook 2010 and questions on how the the program operates.?

Office 2010 Home and Student version does not, and never has, come with Outlook. NONE of the home and student versions of Microsoft Office come with Outlook. Either they had another version of Microsoft Office or else they had a separate installation of Outlook installed.

Outlook is the software that manages emails. Their internet service provider has an email server (like all internet service providers do). Emails are received at the ISP on their server for a user. Then, the user has to have a software program to manage those emails (receive them and to send any). This is where outlook comes in. Outlook will receive the emails from the ISP's email server so that the user can open them and reply or send new, etc. Some people don't like using their ISP's email service and never establish their account with them. Some people choose to not use software like Outlook and they instead just log directly into the ISP's website and read the emails straight from their server. Whatever choice you make is a personal decision EXCEPT in instances where the ISP forces you to have email software as some IPS's have such a small email server they can't handle user emailboxes to fill up with email so they require users to put their email on their computers via software programs like Outlook.

Most ISP's archive emails on their server for x-amount of time. This is in the event there is some sort of security issue that requires them to provide them to law enforcement, for example, if a crime is committed. So when you hear about the FBI sending subpoenas to ISP's for emails on a criminal, this is what that is.

You can call the ISP and ask if they can give you the emails for them by explaining they were lost in a crash. They may, or may not, be able to help you. Nobody here knows the answer to what your ISP might say because we are not privy to how they operate.

If you want outlook you have two choices: (1) either buy a version of Microsoft Office that comes with Outlook OR (2) buy outlook software separately and install it. Outlook comes packaged with Microsoft Office AND it comes separately. Amazon.com is a great place to start shopping so you can see what's available. Keep in mind, Office 2010 (and Outlook 2010) have long ago been discontinued as Office 2013 is the current version. But Amazon carries a lot of outdated programs which is why I recommended them.

Good luck

You can go their site. And fixed your problem. You can find many new features of office home and student 2010. You go and tell your problem or download your own choice software.

Could they have been using Outlook.com as their email provider?