Message compacting pop up when exiting WM

[2MuchCoffeeGirl]

Thanks...that's what I was looking for...how to turn it off completely. I
rarely do any searches and have plenty of drive space, but now that I know
it doesn't do anything to the messages themselves, only deleted stuff
(according to robertmiles...) I might set it for 999.

 

[mac]

Thanks...that's what I was looking for...how to turn it off completely. I
rarely do any searches and have plenty of drive space, but now that I
know
it doesn't do anything to the messages themselves, only deleted stuff
(according to robertmiles...) I might set it for 999.

The question of Compacting messages has nothing to do with Searches, or
drive space.

Deleted stuff leaves big holes in your mail data base, that will lead to
message store corruption, eventually.

Why was compaction of messages ever included in the application, err I know?
So that clever sods could circumvent it.

YMMV?

I know a registry hack to do the same thing, if you want to lose all your
mail, one day?

 

[2MuchCoffeeGirl]

Actually, I've never compacted or compressed (to use the old term) anything
on any of my Microsoft systems (up to 4 years on one OS install) and I've
never had any issues with corruption. The Microsoft based machines are
pretty trouble free if you run them lean. The problem is people put tons of
third party software on the systems, and you never know what you'll get with
that. I figure just install OS, Office maybe, Internet Security, whatever
came with your hardware, and maybe a game or two (and maybe a light game
manager client ala BigFishGames, or WildGames, but not something heavy like
Steam if you can help it). Anything else I would need a really good reason
to install.

 

[flwebmistress]

To disable
Tools
options
advanced tab
go to the bottom maintenance button
remove the check in the box compact the database on shutdown

 

[niki]

Thank you so much for your help, I have been fighting with this message for
over a year and no one seems to know how to shut it off. You are a life
saver! I have lost so must info to the compacting, another question no one
can answer is, WHERE DID IT GO!
Thanks so much

 

[Dave]

You don't lose any messages with the compaction, because it only compacts
the message store (index).
It doesn't touch the messages.

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

It is not wise to disable that feature.
Eventually the message database will get so fragmented that Windows Mail
will grind to a halt.

 

[smokeyque]

This works perfectly. Thanks.

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

It should be there. See this screenshot:
http://tinypic.com/r/2cnuvef/5

 

[Kim Patrick]

It affects whatever email accounts you have set up in Windows Mail.

 

[zambersoli]

So what exactly does this do? I understand it does something for deleted
messages but if you normally clean up your messages even the deleted ones is
this neccesary? On one of the other posts I read it says they lost a bunch of
info by doing this. So is it something that should be done or not and why?

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

By default the compaction process asks to run after you've opened
and closed Windows Mail 100 times. That frequency can be adjusted
under Tools, Options, Advanced, Maintenance. Once you let it do its
thing, it should not bother you again for another 100 runs.
Unlike OE, Windows Mail doesn't need message compaction, it only needs
message store (database) compaction. It compacts the database which is an
index or lookup table for the messages. Every time you delete an email, that
slot in the database is made into a blank. Compaction removes all the blank
spaces that have developed in the database. Periodic removal of the blanks
will make database accesses faster.

 

[Sam Hobbs]

Compacting does not affect messages; it only affects the data Windows Mail
uses to find the messages. I doubt that Windows Mail would cause data
corruption, but if it did, the messages would still be on the hard drive. I
don't know how the data would be fixed, but the experts here could tell you
how to do that, if you need to, but no one can help you if you don't listen
(read).

 

[Steve Cochran]

The confusion arises in that in OE the messages and the database were in the
same file, so compaction reduced the size of the file and sometimes resulted
(results) in corruption of the file and loss of messages. In WinMail the
messages are no longer in the database file, but some 3rd party software can
screw that up, which is why I wrote my WMUtil program
(www.oehelp.com/WMUtil/), which will compact outside of Winmail's processes.

steve

 

[Sam Hobbs]

I am not sure what the original question was, but assuming it included "What
does it mean? Does it put the emails in a separate Zip file or what
happens?".

If it did, then that implies the person did not use OE previously, since if
they were familiar with OE they would know the answers to those questions.