XP OEx Mail File Cleanup Scheduling

[Pete B]

I am running WinXP Pro, IE7/OEx6. There is some kind of an automatic
cleanup for OEx6 that runs on some kind of schedule where every so often,
when I close OEx6, there is a dialoig box that opens and says the mail
folders need to be cleaned up and compacted, and do I want to do this? If I
say no, the damn thing keeps nagtging me every time I close OEx6 until I
finally do it.

Now, I don;t mind the cleanup itself, it only takes about a minute, most of
the time I just go ahead and do it. But usually the last thing I do at
night before shutting off power to my system is to check my email. And if
the schedule happens to be after that session it will run the cleanup, XP
will not ignore it even if I say so and just go ahead and shutdown. It
either waits for the damn dialog to time out, and then just cancels the
powerdown operation, or else it hangs up continually running the "waiting
for..." session over and over even if I hit "End Now". (At which point, I
just shut the power off anyway, since I have yet to find any problem at all
that actually requires that I wait for XP to do its little song and dance
about shutting down).

I have searched high and low to find a way to disable this automated task.
I don't need it at all, actually, my mail files are piuny relative to the
available storage and they are also inherently small since mine is just a
home PC. Where can I find a place to disable this maintenance function
schedule so that it only runs when I specifically do it manually? Searched
Help and the MSKB, no help at all.

 

[Gordon]

I am running WinXP Pro, IE7/OEx6. There is some kind of an automatic
cleanup for OEx6 that runs on some kind of schedule where every so often,
when I close OEx6, there is a dialoig box that opens and says the mail
folders need to be cleaned up and compacted, and do I want to do this? If
I say no, the damn thing keeps nagtging me every time I close OEx6 until I
finally do it.

Now, I don;t mind the cleanup itself, it only takes about a minute, most
of the time I just go ahead and do it. But usually the last thing I do at
night before shutting off power to my system is to check my email. And if
the schedule happens to be after that session it will run the cleanup, XP
will not ignore it even if I say so and just go ahead and shutdown. It
either waits for the damn dialog to time out, and then just cancels the
powerdown operation, or else it hangs up continually running the "waiting
for..." session over and over even if I hit "End Now". (At which point, I
just shut the power off anyway, since I have yet to find any problem at
all that actually requires that I wait for XP to do its little song and
dance about shutting down).

I have searched high and low to find a way to disable this automated task.
I don't need it at all, actually, my mail files are piuny relative to the
available storage and they are also inherently small since mine is just a
home PC. Where can I find a place to disable this maintenance function
schedule so that it only runs when I specifically do it manually?
Searched Help and the MSKB, no help at all.

Don't think you can actually disable it - but I have seen a workaround to
re-set the counter.
This compaction only occurs every ONE HUNDRED launchings of Outlook Express,
so unless you open and close it 10 times a day, it doesn't happen for a long
time.

 

[Pete B]

Well, I probably open and close OEx more than ten times a day easily, most
days, I am not one to open it in the morning and leave it open all day, so
it seems to happen frequently for me. What is the workaround? Is it a reg
key setting or something, I could write a script to defeat that or I coulkd
even just change the count manually; is there an API that I can hook into
to modify this programmatically?

It is not the function itself that pains me, it is that it seems to happen
at inconvenient times is all.

 

[Leonard Grey]

This may prove illuminating:
http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/why.htm#compact

 

[Pete B]

Thanks, Leonard. So basically I guess I am screwed.... oh well, I use MS
stuff, won't be the first time*. Guess I can keep resetting the reg key,
but that seems so kludgey. I wonder which MS engineer dreamed up this
little enhancement. You would think it would be something you could control
via XP administration.

Cool website BTW never knew about it before this.

*(only kidding, I still have not found anything better than OEx)