Reading mail on multiple computers

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Guest

SO the big question.
How do I do this?
My wife has an XP desktop and a Vista laptop and wants to read all her
emails on both computers.


Well this used to be easy with XP.
But it seems that Vista is being smart about something.

Configure two PCs, both with the same email settings for pop3/smtp
@ntlworld.com
Set the advanced option to leave email on the server for 90 days.

In theory both PCs ought to be able to read the new mail.
In practice it doesn't work that way.

Seems that something, somewhere, is maintaining a last message read flag and
preventing both PCs reading all the emails.

Any ideas what the solution is?
 
SmartWwombat said:
SO the big question.
How do I do this?
My wife has an XP desktop and a Vista laptop and wants to read all her
emails on both computers.


Well this used to be easy with XP.
But it seems that Vista is being smart about something.

Configure two PCs, both with the same email settings for pop3/smtp
@ntlworld.com
Set the advanced option to leave email on the server for 90 days.

In theory both PCs ought to be able to read the new mail.
In practice it doesn't work that way.

Seems that something, somewhere, is maintaining a last message read flag
and
preventing both PCs reading all the emails.
Click to expand...

From my point of view it looks like they have fixed a what was a bug in XP.
ie. XP did not fully mark as read an email that had been read.
Any ideas what the solution is?
Click to expand...

Gmail.
 
SmartWwombat said:
SO the big question.
How do I do this?
My wife has an XP desktop and a Vista laptop and wants to read all her
emails on both computers.


Well this used to be easy with XP.
But it seems that Vista is being smart about something.

Configure two PCs, both with the same email settings for pop3/smtp
@ntlworld.com
Set the advanced option to leave email on the server for 90 days.

In theory both PCs ought to be able to read the new mail.
In practice it doesn't work that way.

Seems that something, somewhere, is maintaining a last message read flag
and
preventing both PCs reading all the emails.

Any ideas what the solution is?
Click to expand...

You might well find that it will work, if you only set *one* of the PC's to
delete from the server after a ## of days?
Maybe another reason it is not working now, is that your mail box limit is
exceeded on the server, why do you need to leave mail on the server for so
long?
I have 4 PC's and a PDA operating nicely set to delete after 7 days, on the
Vista kit only.
 
I leave it so long because she sometimes doesn't read mail for a while.
She will expect all her email to be available on each computer.

It seems reading email from XP or Vista sets something, perhaps at the
server side, so that older messages aren't read on the other client.

I'm going to set the desktop to delete mail after 30 days, and the laptop to
leave it indefinitely.
That way we know at least one machine ought to have all the emails on.


I suppose I could install Small Business Edition server and get all our
email via Exchange.
But it seemed overkill for the house LAN :)
 
SmartWombat said:
I leave it so long because she sometimes doesn't read mail for a while.
She will expect all her email to be available on each computer.

It seems reading email from XP or Vista sets something, perhaps at the
server side, so that older messages aren't read on the other client.

I'm going to set the desktop to delete mail after 30 days, and the laptop
to
leave it indefinitely.
That way we know at least one machine ought to have all the emails on.


I suppose I could install Small Business Edition server and get all our
email via Exchange.
But it seemed overkill for the house LAN :)
Click to expand...

Just a note, gmail will only pop once, leave on server does not work, even
though the web site is configured to keep a message on the server inbox.
 
* mac:
Just a note, gmail will only pop once, leave on server does not work, even
though the web site is configured to keep a message on the server inbox.
Click to expand...

https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=47948

How should I use POP on mobile or multiple devices?

If you're accessing your Gmail using POP from multiple clients, Gmail's recent mode makes sure
that all messages are made available to each client, rather than only to the first client to
access new mail.

Recent mode fetches the last 30 days of mail, regardless of whether it's been sent to another
POP client already.

If you sign in to Gmail using your Blackberry, you're signed in to recent mode automatically.
For all other POP clients, replace '(e-mail address removed)' in your POP client settings with
'recent:[email protected]'.


-Michael
 
MICHAEL said:
* mac:

https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=47948

How should I use POP on mobile or multiple devices?

If you're accessing your Gmail using POP from multiple clients, Gmail's
recent mode makes sure
that all messages are made available to each client, rather than only to
the first client to
access new mail.

Recent mode fetches the last 30 days of mail, regardless of whether it's
been sent to another
POP client already.

If you sign in to Gmail using your Blackberry, you're signed in to recent
mode automatically.
For all other POP clients, replace '(e-mail address removed)' in your POP client
settings with
'recent:[email protected]'.


-Michael
Click to expand...

Thank you Michael, I missed that option, now to set up gmail accounts again
on my other machines.
 
It seems that logging out on both machines, and shutting down (not the
memory-save quick turn off) both computers. Then restarting each one at a
time and reading email on each in turn ... something in that process has made
it work.

A heisenbug I suspect.
 
I reckon it was the software equipment of kicking the photocopier.

Percussive maintenance works wonders.
Once I knew it ought to work, the only difficulty was where to kick it :)
 
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