OE and compacting messages

  • Thread starter Thread starter Clark
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Clark

Is there a setting somewhere to keep OE from asking to compress messages? I
can't seem to find it and I keep getting the very irritating notice to
compact the messages. It seems I only saw it after SP2.

Clark
 
Clark said:
Is there a setting somewhere to keep OE from asking to compress messages? I
can't seem to find it and I keep getting the very irritating notice to
compact the messages. It seems I only saw it after SP2.
Click to expand...

If you do not get further help from here, post this to
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress
 
I found out what is going on. I still have one computer using a non-SP2
version of XP and IE 6. It shows an option for "Compress in Background" in
the Maintenance tab, the SP2 version does not have that option. Therefore,
it is going to compress my files whether I want it to or not. I don't like
having things compressed.

Thanks for the reply. I posted here because the XP update changed the
situation and I thought the XP folks should know about it.

Clark
 
I found out what is going on. I still have one computer using a non-SP2
version of XP and IE 6. It shows an option for "Compress in Background" in
the Maintenance tab, the SP2 version does not have that option. Therefore,
it is going to compress my files whether I want it to or not. I don't like
having things compressed.

Thanks for the reply. I posted here because the XP update changed the
situation and I thought the XP folks should know about it.
Click to expand...

Double check in the OE newsgroups, but I believe that SP2 only allows
manual compacting (Tools> Options> Maintenance> Clean Up Now> Compact). For
quite some time (years), it's been known that the background compacting
could cause corruption to OE's message store. In older versions of OE, the
default setting was "on." Since most people turned it off, I'm pretty sure
that SP2 dealt with the matter by removing it entirely.
 
Sharon, SP2 did deal with it, but removed the option to turn it off.
Otherwise, why would I keep getting messages about compacting. And the
message is really strange because it has a box to check if you don't want to
see the message, but if you select cancel so it does not compact, the check
box does not stick. If you click compact , the other option, I assume it
sticks and the compacting is done without notifying you from then on.

Anyway, your comment about corrupted files is what causes me to worry since
the compacting is no longer being done is a way the user is aware. And you
are correct about the maintenance options, manual compacting is allowed, but
the other is also happening. If you know anywhere in the registry I could
check I would appreciate it, but so far I haven't found anything about a
"compact in background" setting.

Clark
 
Sharon, SP2 did deal with it, but removed the option to turn it off.
Otherwise, why would I keep getting messages about compacting. And the
message is really strange because it has a box to check if you don't want to
see the message, but if you select cancel so it does not compact, the check
box does not stick. If you click compact , the other option, I assume it
sticks and the compacting is done without notifying you from then on.

Anyway, your comment about corrupted files is what causes me to worry since
the compacting is no longer being done is a way the user is aware. And you
are correct about the maintenance options, manual compacting is allowed, but
the other is also happening. If you know anywhere in the registry I could
check I would appreciate it, but so far I haven't found anything about a
"compact in background" setting.
Click to expand...

Clark, the best place to ask about this is over in the Outlook Express
newsgroup: microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6.outlookexpress

The MVPs there are OE fanatics and know that program inside and out.
They'll be able to give you the answers you're looking for. I've been using
Dialog as my newsreader for over a year so am a bit out of touch on exactly
how the new improvements work (or don't work.)
 
Sharon, SP2 did deal with it, but removed the option to turn it off.
Otherwise, why would I keep getting messages about compacting. And the
message is really strange because it has a box to check if you don't want to
see the message, but if you select cancel so it does not compact, the check
box does not stick. If you click compact , the other option, I assume it
sticks and the compacting is done without notifying you from then on.

Anyway, your comment about corrupted files is what causes me to worry since
the compacting is no longer being done is a way the user is aware. And you
are correct about the maintenance options, manual compacting is allowed, but
the other is also happening. If you know anywhere in the registry I could
check I would appreciate it, but so far I haven't found anything about a
"compact in background" setting.
Click to expand...

In case you haven't had time to look into this more, I went ahead and did
so...

Automatic background compacting is turned off with SP2. A "counter" system
replaces it. OE will prompt you to compact messages whenever OE has been
closed 100 times. You can dismiss the prompt and do it manually or accept
and let OE do it for you. This cycle will repeat after the next 100 closes
of OE.

The counter is maintained in this registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{long number \Software\Microsoft\Outlook
Express\5.0\compact check count

If this is reset to 0 (decimal), it will start the countdown to 100 over
again. It's imperative to the message store's health to be compacted every
now and then so don't get to carried away with repeatedly resetting this
value to avoid the prompts.

More info on maintenance:
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/files/maintain.htm#auto

More threads about the new OE6 +SP2 database maintenance from Google groups
(sorry about the long URL but I dislike those tiny url things - convenient
but who knows what they're clicking on until after they've clicked):

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...10&as_maxy=2004&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=20&hl=en
 
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