Multiple XP user accounts with one e-mail store

[Andrew]

Good Day

I am trying to set up 4 user accounts (1 administrator, 3 limited
accounts for day to day use, don't want to be an administrator while
on-line) with all acounts sharing one e-mail account and mail store. I
have got this to work while each account is an administrator but
Outlook Express fails to start when an account is changed to a limited
account. If I change it back to administrator the mail works again.
Outlook Express (OE6) has 1 mail store (F:/Mail).

How can I fix this problem?

Any help is appreciated. Four nights searching the web has failed to
find an answer.

Regards
Andrew

 

[Doug Knox - [MS-MVP]]

You need to check the permissions on the mail store folder to ensure that
all users have read and write permissions. Additionally, you might want to
turn of Fast User Switching. Multiple instances of OE latching on to the
mail store at the same time could corrupt the whole thing.

 

[Andrew]

Hi Doug

I managed to get the folder security tab up and running with some help
form your great site and changed the mail folder permissions to 'full
control' for 1 user (working on the solution with 1 user at first,
then I'll make the same changes to all other users). This change did
not fix the problem though. Should the folder permissions be per user
or per group and does it make a difference? Is there anything else I
can try?

Regards
Andrew

 

[Andrew]

Hi Doug

I managed to get the folder security tab up and running with some help
form your great site and changed themailfolder permissions to 'full
control' for 1user(working on the solution with 1userat first,
then I'll make the same changes to all other users). This change did
not fix the problem though. Should the folder permissions be peruser
or per group and does it make a difference? Is there anything else I
can try?

Regards
Andrew

Problem now fixed. I don't actually know how it was fixed but the PC
is now doing what I wanted it to do.

For the record in case it helps anyone else: I created a new mail
store folder on a hard drive formatted with a FAT32 file system and
pointed each user account's OE to that mail store. I then created a
new folder back on the original hard drive partition and copied the
mail files (.DBX files) into the new folder. Each user accounts OE was
then pointed to use this folder as the mail store. It works, but I
dont fully understand why, can't see any difference in the mail store
folder's permissions. Maybe all that OE and XP needed was a sharp clip
and being told to behave...

Andrew