Compacting the database/limitations

[Chris King]

I recently saw the other day my Windows Mail News file was in excess of
800mb, further investigation showed by looking at logs, it had tried to
compact the message file, failed and left the file unchanged writing the
error into the EVENT view log. The error reported was it had exceed 4mb,
surely 4mb is a tiny limitation for the new Windows Vista mail file?
Anyway, having painstakingly removed the .nws files, folders, deleting the
account(s) (both communities and my own news server), plus the 800mb file,
its created a new set of folders/files when I reopened it, then proceed to
download the mail, however even after this its hit 500mb, the compact mail
store option has been set to 1 to try and force it to compact after each run
of downloaded mail, the only option I can find to purge messages over a
certain time frame is the option where you say how many days before messages
are deleted after downloading, this of course can only be set to the lowest
of 1 day, so it means I have to wait 1 day before I can attempt to purge
messages out my 500mb file.
Is there no way to set it to purge messages after a certain date or older
than a certain date or even overcome the 4mb limit, so far I am stuck with a
large mail file (4 newsgroups set at 30 days messages) plus the Vista
communities ones..

Chris

 

[dennis@home]

8<

Is there no way to set it to purge messages after a certain date or older
than a certain date or even overcome the 4mb limit, so far I am stuck with
a large mail file (4 newsgroups set at 30 days messages) plus the Vista
communities ones..

Have you tried the clean up now button from the maintenance options?
You can purge messages and headers there

 

[Chris King]

Have you tried the clean up now button from the maintenance options?
You can purge messages and headers there

Hi Denise,

Yes, tried this, because my message base had failed to compact without me
knowing, even these options failed to do anything, it was only when I
completely removed the data and started from scratch, could I even get the
database to drop in size by 200mb. Alas also purging the messages/headers
doesnt really help as when you next poll for mail, it pulls them down
again - more so if you do a reset as it resets the message counter for that
forum/section.

Chris

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM]

Hi Denise,

Yes, tried this, because my message base had failed to compact without me
knowing, even these options failed to do anything, it was only when I
completely removed the data and started from scratch, could I even get the
database to drop in size by 200mb. Alas also purging the messages/headers
doesnt really help as when you next poll for mail, it pulls them down
again - more so if you do a reset as it resets the message counter for
that forum/section.

Chris

Compacting only compacts WindowsMail.MSMessageStore, which does not contain
the messages themselves. The only way you can actually lower the disk space
used by messages is by actually deleting the messages. Don't do this with
Windows Explorer.
Make sure you have installed this fix:
Messages may be stuck in the Outbox when you use Windows Mail on a computer
that is running Windows Vista
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941090
It also works on other folders.

 

[Chris King]

Compacting only compacts WindowsMail.MSMessageStore, which does not
contain the messages themselves. The only way you can actually lower the
disk space used by messages is by actually deleting the messages. Don't
do this with Windows Explorer.
Make sure you have installed this fix:
Messages may be stuck in the Outbox when you use Windows Mail on a
computer that is running Windows Vista
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941090
It also works on other folders.

Hi Frank

I dont actually use Windows Mail for emails, just the news groups, and up
until this point I havent used Windows mail to reply or post any messages in
any newsgroups since I upgraded/moved to Vista.
I had already purged deleted all folders/messages themselves, as well as
removing the message store file, before resetting up the accounts, so I had
a new MessageStore file, no folders and no .nws files in any folders.
Attaching myself to my 4 newsgroups, 2 I admit get a lot of mail daily (one
currently has 409181 messages, the other 76433), the rest are all from
Microsoft Communities (all the Vista ones), the problem is when I polled for
the messages from my ISP it pulled down all messages in the four groups,
leaving me with a 500mb file. When compacting it, the progress bar nearly
reaches the end, but then drops out.. the message in the event viewer file
is:
"Description: WinMail (5444) WindowsMail0: The version store for this
instance (0) has reached its maximum size of 4Mb. It is likely that a
long-running transaction is preventing cleanup of the version store and
causing it to build up in size. Updates will be rejected until the
long-running transaction has been completely committed or rolled back."
I have removed all the XML code and stuff above and below to just paste the
english text message.
Since the store has failed to compact (and I dont know for how long), plus I
have now trashed the whole file and restarted again, only to end up with a
500mb file and the same problem, I clearly need to try and balance the
compact process and how many days to set as a number in the maintenance
options. I have at present set it for 2 days, gradually increasing it until
I can get the message store to be a respectable limit, plus allowing me to
keep a safe enough number of messages in it so it wont tip it over the 4mb.

Chris

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM]

Hi Frank

I dont actually use Windows Mail for emails, just the news groups, and up
until this point I havent used Windows mail to reply or post any messages
in any newsgroups since I upgraded/moved to Vista.
I had already purged deleted all folders/messages themselves, as well as
removing the message store file, before resetting up the accounts, so I
had a new MessageStore file, no folders and no .nws files in any folders.
Attaching myself to my 4 newsgroups, 2 I admit get a lot of mail daily
(one currently has 409181 messages, the other 76433), the rest are all
from Microsoft Communities (all the Vista ones), the problem is when I
polled for the messages from my ISP it pulled down all messages in the
four groups, leaving me with a 500mb file. When compacting it, the
progress bar nearly reaches the end, but then drops out.. the message in
the event viewer file is:
"Description: WinMail (5444) WindowsMail0: The version store for this
instance (0) has reached its maximum size of 4Mb. It is likely that a
long-running transaction is preventing cleanup of the version store and
causing it to build up in size. Updates will be rejected until the
long-running transaction has been completely committed or rolled back."
I have removed all the XML code and stuff above and below to just paste
the english text message.
Since the store has failed to compact (and I dont know for how long), plus
I have now trashed the whole file and restarted again, only to end up with
a 500mb file and the same problem, I clearly need to try and balance the
compact process and how many days to set as a number in the maintenance
options. I have at present set it for 2 days, gradually increasing it
until I can get the message store to be a respectable limit, plus allowing
me to keep a safe enough number of messages in it so it wont tip it over
the 4mb.

Chris

Make a message rule like this:

Apply this rule after the message arrives
Where the message was sent more than 25 days ago
Delete it

and apply it manually to the news folders.

 

[Chris King]

Chris

Make a message rule like this:

Apply this rule after the message arrives
Where the message was sent more than 25 days ago
Delete it

and apply it manually to the news folders.

Brilliant, is that a new feature in Windows Mail, I have never seen that
before - I always used the "delete after xx days after download".
Do I need a rule for each folder, or if I set one for groups with Sub
Folders set, do I just need one for each group?

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM]

Brilliant, is that a new feature in Windows Mail, I have never seen that
before - I always used the "delete after xx days after download".
Do I need a rule for each folder, or if I set one for groups with Sub
Folders set, do I just need one for each group?

I used the rule for years and years in Outlook Express.
Note that it will also delete any message dated that many days in the
future.
You can apply it to any news folder you want when you manually apply it. It
will only work automatically as messages are downloaded. In other words, if
it is checked to be automatic it will not delete messages that were already
downloaded unless you apply it manually.