Outlook Express wants to compact my mail 1

[MichaelHooker]

I used to use Outlook Express. After my PC reset itself unexpectedly and the .pst file got corrupted, I followed MicroSoft's advice and upgraded to "Live Mail", which I have to say did an admirable job of reconstructing the mail file, something OE had refused to do. On shut-down OE used to ask if I wanted to compact my e-mail file. I always clicked no. I never get the same from Live Mail, if it compacts it must do it without asking.

However, a strange thing has been happening for the last couple of days. Every now and then, seemingly at random, and <not> at shutdown, up will pop a little window headed "Outlook Express" (not "Live Mail") which offers to compact my e-mail and won't go away until I press cancel.

Can someone please tell me how to stop this happening? Having shut-down interrupted was bad enough, being interrupted in the middle of my work is much worse. It's rude! And why has it started happening now, and why does it say "Outlook Express" (I suspect an oversight by the Live Mail programming team).

Thanks

Michael Hooker

 

[smah]

Outlook Express is not the same as Live Mail. It's OE that's asking to compact. Just let it compact.

 

[MichaelHooker]

I'm sorry, but I don't want my mail compacted, and that's that. If I did I would set the compact option in Live Mail. I'm certainly not going to be bullied into compacting by a dialog box that won't go away, and anyway, your solution does not answer my questions.

Outlook Express is no longer a program which should be running on my PC in any event, in stealth mode or any other. Task Manager does not show MSIMN.EXE running. WLMAIL.EXE <is> running.

Michael Hooker

 

[smah]

Why are you against allowing it to do what it's supposed to? If you let it compact, you will stop being bothered by the prompt.

 

[goombawaho]

There's nothing wrong with letting it compact your mail. It cleans out e-mails that have been deleted by you and reduces the size of the "database" files.

Corruption used to be a big problem in Outlook Express and I'm assuming there have been some improvements in Live Mail to avoid some of the corruption risks. You are trying to fight something that is good for your mail store.

Keep fighting to your own detriment.

 

[aich69]

Why not just remove OE from your machine altogether via the 'Add or Remove Programs - Add or Remove Windows Components' method... that way it's not going to be bothering you with pop up messages regarding compacting your mail.





I used to have a handle on life... but it broke. Cpt. Red Bull

 

[MichaelHooker]

Thank you for your suggestions, but no-one has made any attempt to answer my detailed questions. Whether I should compact my mail or not is irrelevant, and what my reasons are for not doing so are irrelevant. If compacting was essential it would take place automatically, without an option in the software settings. The software should respect the option chosen, should it not? I know perfectly well that the box will go away (until next time something decides my mail needs compacting) if I compact my mail. I know I can remove Outlook Express.

The point is that the box should not be coming up in the first place, and that if it comes up this should be as a reaction to an event of some kind. It makes no sense that a program which is not running, and which is not my default e-mail client, should take it into its head to offer to compact my mail at random times: something is causing it to do so. When I used Outlook Express, it only offered to compact when it was shut-down, the behaviour is not even normal for my Outlook set-up. There must be some kind of technical reason for this, and that's what I'm trying to get to the bottom of. I'm a programmer myself, though not in this field, and I'm telling you, this behaviour makes no sense - something is <wrong>, and it needs identifying.

Michael Hooker

 

[aich69]

Can someone please tell me how to stop this happening?

Re: above quote.

As you are now using Live Mail which seems to have your approval, suggesting you remove OE from your system does exactly that... it stops it happening [compacting prompt].

If you don't mind me saying, your tone is somewhat supercilious. If we didn't answer your question in the manner in which you were expecting then maybe it was because we were trying to solve a problem as opposed to debating the validity of MS code and it's shortcomings.
It appeared the pop up was annoying you, I merely suggested a way to stop it. I refer you back to your above quote.

I used to have a handle on life... but it broke. Cpt. Red Bull

 

[smah]

OK, first history has shown that the OE mail store database is notoriously fragile. It is a poorly indexed database. Way back when (in version 5 I believe), OE did compact messages automatically in the background. The problem was that if anything happened during the background compaction (like the user shutting down the PC), the mail store was completely screwed up. So, starting with Version 6, the function was presented to the user with a little progress graphic to cut down on the accidental damage.

Why it's still prompting you is a slightly different matter. It's still flagged as needing to be compacted. However, I wouldn't expect it to warn you unless OE is being accessed, but perhaps something is still accessing (or trying to) OE in the background enough to trigger the prompt. I'd bet that if you move and/or rename all your .dbx files, the propmt will stop, since OE will no longer have a mail store even if something is accessing it in the background.

 

[MichaelHooker]

smah wrote

The problem was that if anything happened during the background compaction (like the user shutting down the PC), the mail store was completely screwed up

Thank you. Now is that not a good enough reason to avoid compaction? I also get power cuts, other software makes the PC misbehave (memory leaks?) and my PC has a strange attitude to things like USB sticks and the like. Despite going through the full "Safely remove hardware" procedure it sometimes just resets itself when the item is removed. It's been known to do the same thing when I press the eject button on the CD drive... I have used three different versions of the full Outlook, and several versions of OE, and I've had totally screwed-up mail files with all of them. I even have a shortcut to the Inbox Repair Tool (SCANPST.EXE) on my desktop.

but perhaps something is still accessing (or trying to) OE in the background enough to trigger the prompt.

Exactly. I'm trying to find out what that something is and what's triggering it. I'm not interested in debating shortcomings in Microsoft's code, btw. I shall be carefully examining all the running processes next time it happens, if I have the chance. Strangely, it hasn't happened at all today (yet).

aich69 wrote

If we didn't answer your question in the manner in which you were expecting then maybe it was because we were trying to solve a problem

I also clearly asked why it was happening. I'm guilty of thinking that this was probably a fairly well-known problem and that somebody would have the exact cure, for example like deleting some problem entry in Windows Registry. And no-one came back saying "Wow! That shouldn't be happening, never heard anything like it" did they? You don't go to the doctor and say "I have a pain in my leg when I walk, what's causing it?" and expect to be told "Either don't go for walks or have the leg amputated. That'll stop it hurting." If you don't mind me saying say so, simply saying that you didn't know the answer to my question would have made it clear that you weren't ignoring it.

As you are now using Live Mail which seems to have your approval, suggesting you remove OE from your system does exactly that... it stops it happening [compacting prompt].

LiveMail neither has nor needs my approval. I use it because Microsoft don't appear to support OE any more, and recommend Livemail instead. LiveMail imported my unreadable pst file when OE couldn't. All I can say is that so far, it works, but it hasn't been sorely tested yet. Also if whatever is calling OE fails to get an answer from OE, who knows what might happen instead of a compacting prompt? Maybe a prompt saying "Cannot find Outlook Express" prompting me to browse for an unavailable program? Are you quite sure that that or something similar wouldn't happen?

Michael Hooker

 

[tlcscousin]

http://groups.google.ca/group/micro...&q=stop+OE+prompt+to+compact#a8c042bd31882b7c

This thread in google groups discusses the issue and suggests several programs that can cause the issue as well.

 

[MichaelHooker]

Excellent [bold]tlcscousin[/bold], thank you so much for pointing me to this. It does seem to be becoming a common problem, and the solution is not easy. I have much of the software which is said to cause increased incrementing of the counter which triggers the prompt, namely LiveMail (!), Windows SP3 (!!), Windows Desktop Search (!!!) and MailWasher. Hopefully a solution will be found, and the problem fixed through upgrades to the programs which don't work together as they should.

Michael Hooker