Outlook Express message box

  • Thread starter Thread starter mikew
  • Start date Start date
M

mikew

For about a week now, when closing Outlook Express, A message is displayed
saying that messages can be compacted.
Does anyone know of a way to switch this off.
This is a home machine and doesn't recieve much mail, and storage is not a
problem.

At first I thought it was an issue with a Windows update, but, I don't think
so now.
I am running Windows XP Pro x64 but the same problem has occured on a
machine running Windows XP Home.

Would be greatfull if anyone could shed any light on what may have caused
this and how to fix it

I can't see any obviouse setting, but there again, personally I use Eudora
as opposed to Outlook Express so am not too familiar with it's quiks

Mike
 
You should really post this in the Outlook Express discussion group. But, for
what it's worth, you can sometimes get this message when you have too many
large open messages on your inbox combined with a large number of files in
your Deleted box, which should be dumped.
 
mikew said:
For about a week now, when closing Outlook Express, A message is displayed
saying that messages can be compacted.
Does anyone know of a way to switch this off.
This is a home machine and doesn't recieve much mail, and storage is not a
problem.

At first I thought it was an issue with a Windows update, but, I don't
think so now.
I am running Windows XP Pro x64 but the same problem has occured on a
machine running Windows XP Home.

Would be greatfull if anyone could shed any light on what may have caused
this and how to fix it

I can't see any obviouse setting, but there again, personally I use Eudora
as opposed to Outlook Express so am not too familiar with it's quiks

Mike
Click to expand...

Compacting of folders is necessary or they will become corrupted or else so
large that they can no longer be used. Deleting a message does not reclaim
the space. The message is marked as deleted but is still there until the
folder is compacted. That is why programs such as DBXtract work.

If a user closes compacting while compacting is in progress data loss will
probably occur.

Don't store messages in the default OE folders. Move them to user created
folders as soon as possible.

Open OE, move messages and close it and let it compact the messages. After
doing this it
won't ask again until you have closed OE 100 times.
 
Tonyo UK said:
You should really post this in the Outlook Express discussion group.
Click to expand...

<snip>

Tonyo, thanks for replying

I posted the origonal from my girlfriends machine and didn't have much time
I've set up Outlook Express as a news reader on my machine now so will
locate and post in a more relavent group

Your suggestion was the first thing I looked at, but can't be the cause
She uses Hotmail, so the deleted mail is deleted every day
Her POP3 account attracts about 2/3 mails per week, and they are deleted and
cleared from the deleted folder
Also her Hotmail inbox, at the most, has no more than maybe a dozen messages
in it at any one time that is purely text, so no big photos hanging around

I'm a programmer and sometimes, and this is getting more and more often, I
am tottally stumped by the actions of Microsoft
Things just happen, and generally after downloading updates, remember the
issue with an IE patch and HP software
This situation has just happened, and the only thing I have done is install
updates on her machine

What stumps me the most is that when using x64 you expect problems like
this, it's part and parcel of using an operating system that's not aimed at
Joe Public
But not for an operating system thats been sold to millions of home users

Anyway, bit of a rant over, and once again thanks for putting fingers to
keyboard

mikew
 
Frank Saunders said:
news:[email protected]...
Click to expand...

wrote: "Compacting of folders is necessary or they will become corrupted"

<snip>

Frank, are you saying that if I delete a message out of an Inbox, then
delete the entire Deleted Items folder, the ` Deleted Items` folder is still
the same size as before it was emptied
Also, does this mean the Inbox will be the same size as it was before the
files where moved to the Deleted Items folder

Deleting a file should remove the header information that Windows uses to
locate the file and then mark that area of the hard drive as being available
to be overwritten, I can't see how it can retain the origonal size
Yes the file will be there, but Windows should recognise it as available
space and not as if was a currently available file
Possibly I'm expecting too much of Microsoft

And one last thing if you can bear with me
Where has this 100 close downs come from
If Outlook Express is looking at the size of a folder then the ammount of
times it is opened and closed is immaterial, surley the size of the files
should be the determining factor if it needs to do extra work and not the
frequency that it is used

I hope I'm not coming over as predantic here, but I write desktop apps and
my programs do not suffer from this problem, unless I wanted to put the
problem there, and hopefully, I'm about to learn a bit more as to how
Microsoft write software

Thanks for your input here, the reply I made to Tonyo should explaine why it
is not really in the right place

mikew
 
Both Outlook and Express store their mail in a file(s), broadly speaking
they are a database like structure. So when you delete the msg the database
(mail file) requires compacting to recover the space.
If, as a programmer, you work with databases I'm sure you'll understand the
concept. I know you can program in an automatic compact but this may
requires the db to be closed whilst doing so. In the case of OE MS seems to
have opted for the 'reminder' method.
So you are off base when refering to win files header info, the mail msgs
are not stored as individual files within the win structure.
 
:
: : > :
: wrote: "Compacting of folders is necessary or they will become corrupted"
:
: <snip>
:
: Frank, are you saying that if I delete a message out of an Inbox, then
: delete the entire Deleted Items folder, the ` Deleted Items` folder is
still
: the same size as before it was emptied
: Also, does this mean the Inbox will be the same size as it was before the
: files where moved to the Deleted Items folder
:
: Deleting a file should remove the header information that Windows uses to
: locate the file and then mark that area of the hard drive as being
available
: to be overwritten, I can't see how it can retain the origonal size
: Yes the file will be there, but Windows should recognise it as available
: space and not as if was a currently available file
: Possibly I'm expecting too much of Microsoft
:
: And one last thing if you can bear with me
: Where has this 100 close downs come from
: If Outlook Express is looking at the size of a folder then the ammount of
: times it is opened and closed is immaterial, surley the size of the files
: should be the determining factor if it needs to do extra work and not the
: frequency that it is used
:
: I hope I'm not coming over as predantic here, but I write desktop apps and
: my programs do not suffer from this problem, unless I wanted to put the
: problem there, and hopefully, I'm about to learn a bit more as to how
: Microsoft write software
:
: Thanks for your input here, the reply I made to Tonyo should explaine why
it
: is not really in the right place
:
: mikew
:
:
I believe that you deleted the contents of Deleted Items, not the entire
folder.
Dbx files are database type files. The location of a message is removed
when you delete a message. The space is not regained until the dbx file is
compacted.

Previously, OE could compact after every closing.
This frequent compacting increased the chances of file corruption and
subsequent loss on messages.
100 closings is a tradeoff between too frequent and never compacting.
Slowness opening an OE folder is an indication that the folder needs
compacting.

There is not much to learn from how Microsoft writes free software.
 
Comments inline:

mikew said:
wrote: "Compacting of folders is necessary or they will become corrupted"

<snip>

Frank, are you saying that if I delete a message out of an Inbox, then
delete the entire Deleted Items folder, the ` Deleted Items` folder is
still the same size as before it was emptied
Also, does this mean the Inbox will be the same size as it was before the
files where moved to the Deleted Items folder
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I'm saying.
Deleting a file should remove the header information that Windows uses to
locate the file and then mark that area of the hard drive as being
available to be overwritten, I can't see how it can retain the origonal
size
Yes the file will be there, but Windows should recognise it as available
space and not as if was a currently available file
Possibly I'm expecting too much of Microsoft
Click to expand...

The others have explained about OE not storing messages as individual files
and how a database file works. All that happens when you "delete" a message
is that it is marked as deleted so that it won't be copied the next time the
folder is compacted.
And one last thing if you can bear with me
Where has this 100 close downs come from
If Outlook Express is looking at the size of a folder then the ammount of
times it is opened and closed is immaterial, surley the size of the files
should be the determining factor if it needs to do extra work and not the
frequency that it is used
Click to expand...

The 100 came from Microsoft as part of an attempt to protect people from
losing their OE message store.
I hope I'm not coming over as predantic here, but I write desktop apps and
my programs do not suffer from this problem, unless I wanted to put the
problem there, and hopefully, I'm about to learn a bit more as to how
Microsoft write software
Click to expand...

Then you do NOT write normal database applications. Database applications
have been like this since I began programming dBase in the early 1980s.
 
Frank Saunders said:
Comments inline:
Click to expand...

Frank wrote: "That's exactly what I'm saying"

<snip>

Thanks Frank, you have just given me the biggest reason to use Eudora and
not Outlook Express

And yes, I do write normal database applications and I would I thank you for
not shouting

The computing world does not end, and did not begin with Microsoft, take
that on board

It is not difficult to write code that allows a user to access disk space
that has been freed up by deleting a file
As I am sure you are aware

Regarding the origonal issue
It seems best not to use Microsoft software

Bye then my good man

mikew
 
Back
Top