System Restore & Outlook Express Problems

[Dave Schwartz]

Don't know what happened. I noticed that I could no longer delete messages
from my Inbox in Outlook Express. Also noticed that my Sent Message folder
was very large and tried to delete all of those messages. Could not.
Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes I get a window saying that the message
could not be deleted.
So I tried System Restore a number of times. Each time it says that the
system could NOT be restored. I don't get it. Never had a problem with
either of these Programs.
I ran Norton's Anti Virus and all is well. Ran check disk overnight.
Same 2 problems.
Everything else seems to be working OK.
Any thoughts?

 

[-~Alias~-]

Don't know what happened. I noticed that I could no longer delete messages
from my Inbox in Outlook Express. Also noticed that my Sent Message folder
was very large and tried to delete all of those messages. Could not.
Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes I get a window saying that the message
could not be deleted.
So I tried System Restore a number of times. Each time it says that the
system could NOT be restored. I don't get it. Never had a problem with
either of these Programs.
I ran Norton's Anti Virus and all is well. Ran check disk overnight.
Same 2 problems.
Everything else seems to be working OK.
Any thoughts?

Disable Norton's email scan and try it. Keep Norton's email scan
disabled as it offers no additional protection and can cause problems
like these.

It could also be that those two folders are corrupt. If disabling
Norton's email scan doesn't do it and if the messages are not important
to you, go to your Outlook Express message store and delete inbox.dbx
and sent.dbx. Outlook Express will create new, empty ones. Dbx. files
are hidden in 2000 and XP.

Do NOT store messages in the default folders. Create folders as sub
folders under Local Folders. Do not allow any folder to get bigger than
100MB.

Alias

 

[PA Bear]

Can you /move/ messages out of Inbox and/or Sent Items to other user-created
local folders?

When was the last time you manually compacted all OE folders
(http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact)?

General OE Caveats:

- Don't use Inbox or Sent Items to archive messages. Move them to local
folders created for this purpose.

- Empty Deleted Items folder daily.

- Disable Background Compacting [N/A in SP2] and frequently perform a manual
compact of all OE folders while "working offline". More at
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm

- WinXP SP2 only: Do not attempt to close OE via Task Manager or shutdown
your machine if Automatic Compacting is taking place.

- WinXP SP2 only: If your machine is fully up-to-date at Windows Update,
installing the following patch (KB918766) will help to avoid such data loss
in the future:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=86b68a78-f325-4a95-98c2-98af2256ccc3

This patch will be included in the next Cumulative Update for Outlook
Express/WinXP SP2.

- Your anti-virus application's email scanning feature can also cause
corruption. Disable it. It provides no additional protection.
--
OE6-specific newsgroup:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.windows.inetexplorer.ie6_outlookexpress
OE General newsgroup:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general

~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE/OE, Security, Shell/User)

 

[NewScience]

How much free space do you have left on the partition. You cannot delete OE
messages unless there is enough free space for the Deleted Items. Nad you
cannot delete items from Deleted Items, unless you have enough free space
for housekeeping.

You can always delete the Deleted Items folder, OE will recreate it when
started.