I've noticed similar things under XP.

It seems erratic. When using down arrow to move down a newsgroup, the
focus may move to the message list window even when no messages are
downloaded. Usually it doesn't but sometimes it does.

As for moving down a folder, usually I have to press it twice (first
time highlights the folder, second moves down), but once in a while, one
press moves to the next folder.

As for moving up a folder, that never works until I tab though the
message list and reading pane back to the folder list.

It's annoying, but I still mostly use the keyboard to navigate. It's
faster than the mouse.

--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm



"JethroUK©" <reply@the.board> wrote in message
news:uBMrn9#zIHA.4416@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Vista has a very serious problem with object focus - makes it very
> difficult/ nay totally impossible to operate with a keyboard so i
> suspect it's lost a lot of customers for this reason alone
>
> Live Mail also seems to have a focus issues & i'm not sure which is to
> blame
>
> when you attempt to move (up/down) folders in the folder pane using
> keyboard - if there is news/mail download, the folder loses focus to
> the mail/message window - if not it takes two presses to activate the
> folder - ?????????? - again this peculiar behavior makes it impossible
> to navigate with keys