I like the email notification option because I check my email daily, and if I see an email from this website to a topic I posted in, I can go to it immediately by clicking the email link.
"Show new replies to your post" works too. It's just another way of doing the same thing.
Example: Double click a .DOC file and MSWord opens up.
-or-
Open MSWord and then browse to open the file you need.
I prefer to dbl click the file I want to open Word. Same result, but quicker in my opinion. Did I get off the topic here??? Sorry, just throwing my 2¢ around in here. Gotta love the "¢" key...huh!!!!???¿¿?