If you are using an antivirus program that has an email scanning option, disable it, ONLY
IF you have the antivirus program's auto-protect running in the background. The
auto-protect will not allow any infected email attachments to be opened. The email
scanning is redundant and can cause problems.
Also, in the main OE window click the Tools menu, click Options, on the General tab remove
the checkmark for: Automatically log on to Windows Messenger. Then click the Maintenance
tab and remove the checkmark for the option: Automatically compact messages in the
background. Then click the Apply and OK buttons. Then click the Edit menu, click Layout,
click to remove the checkmark for the option: Contacts. I would also recommend removing
the checkmark for the option Preview Pane. Although it's convenient to see the contents
of a message in the Preview Pane, it's in essence opening the message, and if it's an html
formatted message, it can cause all kinds of problems. How about getting rid of the
Preview Pane, and only opening the messages that you want to see. Then click the Apply
and OK buttons.
You will have to manually Compact the folders, depending upon how much email you send and
receive. Compact the folders once a week or once a month depending on the volume. How:
In the main OE window click the File menu, click Folder/Compact All Folders.
If you have many messages that have attachments, save the wanted attachments (docs/images
to your hard drive, and then delete the messages. That keeps your folder sizes smaller.
The larger the mail folder files, the more resources are hogged loading them, which could
cause problems.
After doing all the above, close OE, then reboot. Then open OE and manually compact the
Folders as described above. Close OE, and then open it, and see if things go smoother.
