HTML links in email

[welshTerrier2]

my email client seems able to READ html formatted emails but not WRITE them ... I've mostly been using MSN Explorer ... i would love to switch to a product like Thunderbird but it apparently is not compatible with my MSN account which i would like to keep ...

so, with that background, here's what i'm trying to accomplish:

when i include a link in an email i create like <a href="http://www.democraticUnderground.com/welshTerrier2>my DU journal</a> and send the email to myself, the HTML tag comes across as plain text rather than HTML ... if i do a view source on the message, it shows the opening and closing tags as "ampersand less than" and "ampersand greater than" symbols instead of the necessary angle brackets ...

there's a setting in my email client that enables HTML mail ... when i receive email from other people that includes links, they work correctly ... the problem seems to be in WRITING HTML encoded messages ...

i've tried using Outlook Express to see if that would solve the problem but no go ... any ideas on how to solve this without changing email clients? any help would be greatly appreciated ...