Vista Calendar Stopped Notifications

[Ted Smith]

It used to be that when I put in a future event in Vista Calendar it would
pop up a notification screen for me at the designated time whether I opened
Calendar or not. Now it only pops up the notification if I actually open up
Calendar itself, which I may not do until after the event has past. How can
I correct this.

Ted Smith

 

[David Trimboli]

It used to be that when I put in a future event in Vista Calendar it
would pop up a notification screen for me at the designated time whether
I opened Calendar or not. Now it only pops up the notification if I
actually open up Calendar itself, which I may not do until after the
event has past. How can I correct this.

File | Options. Select "Reminders should show when Windows Calendar is
not running."

 

[Ted Smith]

Thanks. I checked and the option was set correctly. But I unchecked, and
saved, then rechecked the option and save it again just in case there was a
hiccup there. But that didn't correct the problem. I ran several tests and
it is still there. Any other ideas?

Ted Smith

 

[Ted Smith]

Thanks. I checked and the option was set correctly. But I unchecked, and
saved, then rechecked the option and save it again just in case there was a
hiccup there. But that didn't correct the problem. I ran several tests and
it is still there. Any other ideas?

Ted Smith

 

[David Trimboli]

Thanks. I checked and the option was set correctly. But I unchecked,
and saved, then rechecked the option and save it again just in case
there was a hiccup there. But that didn't correct the problem. I ran
several tests and it is still there. Any other ideas?

Calendar reminders are tasks in the Task Scheduler. Open this, go to
Task Scheduler Library\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCalendar, and examine
the tasks that correspond to appointments in your calendar. See if you
can find something wrong. Try making a new appointment with an alert
and see what happens in the Task Scheduler.

 

[Ted Smith]

Thanks again. When I got there I got two error messages that said:
"An error has occurred for task Reminders - Owner. Error
message: The specified account name is not valid."

The second message was the same except it substituted my name, "Ted", for
"Owner". Where do I go from here?

Ted Smith

 

[David Trimboli]

Thanks again. When I got there I got two error messages that said:
"An error has occurred for task Reminders - Owner. Error
message: The specified account name is not valid."

The second message was the same except it substituted my name, "Ted",
for "Owner". Where do I go from here?

I can't be sure, but I would suggest deleting the "Reminders - Owner"
and "Reminders - Ted" tasks, then going back to the calendar and
resetting (turn off then turn on) the reminders you want.

I just tried this myself. You have to close Task Scheduler and open it
again before you can see the new reminders task, but it worked for me.

 

[Ted Smith]

Thanks David. The "Reminders - Owner" and "Reminders - Ted" do not exist in
the task scheduler so I can't delete them. I had set my wife up with a user
standard account so I tried setting up a calendar appointment for her. The
Calendar reminder functions worked properly for her, and her reminders
(Reminders - JoAnn) do show up in the task scheduler, but mine don't. I
suspect that something in the registry is pointing to the wrong place. Any
other ideas?

Ted Smith

 

[Jon]

Thanks David. The "Reminders - Owner" and "Reminders - Ted" do not exist
in the task scheduler so I can't delete them. I had set my wife up with a
user standard account so I tried setting up a calendar appointment for
her. The Calendar reminder functions worked properly for her, and her
reminders (Reminders - JoAnn) do show up in the task scheduler, but mine
don't. I suspect that something in the registry is pointing to the wrong
place. Any other ideas?

Sounds like a confusion over user names ie Owner vs Ted. Perhaps you
switched user at some point.

The calendars are user specific, located in

"%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows Calendar\Calendars\"

or in layman's terms

"C:\Users\MyUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Calendar\Calendars\"

So you could perhaps have a look in

"C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Calendar\Calendars\"

and try copying / renaming the calendar over to

"C:\Users\Ted\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Calendar\Calendars\"

 

[Ted Smith]

Thanks Jon. Maybe I have a bigger problem than what I thought. All my data
in in \Users\Owner, and nothing is in Users\Ted. At some point I had
renamed the Calendar to "Ted Smith's Calendar" so that is what is reflected
in the .ics file as well as in the .xml file, and both are in only the
\Users\Owner directory. Did I understand you correctly that the data should
be in both directories?

Ted Smith

 

[Jon]

Thanks Jon. Maybe I have a bigger problem than what I thought. All my
data in in \Users\Owner, and nothing is in Users\Ted. At some point I had
renamed the Calendar to "Ted Smith's Calendar" so that is what is
reflected in the .ics file as well as in the .xml file, and both are in
only the \Users\Owner directory. Did I understand you correctly that the
data should be in both directories?

Ted Smith

Shouldn't need to be in 2 directories. Just once in the appropriate
directory.

What may have happened is that your account was originally called 'Owner',
and you perhaps at a later stage renamed it to Ted (eg via Control Panel).
This would have the effect of leaving the folder name as 'Owner' on disk.
The changed account name, however, may have had the effect of confusing
Windows Calendar reminders (which would indicate a bug in Windows Calendar
under this scenario).

If it's a separately created account named Ted, independent of any previous
'Owner' account, then that would be a different kettle of fish.

One key test is whether the calendar shows up in the left pane when you open
up Windows Calendar. If not you could also import it in via the File menu.


I suppose you could create a brand new user account (with no confusion of
folder name and account name) and import in the old calendar, but there may
well be an easier way.

 

[Ted Smith]

Thanks again Jon. Yes, I did rename the owner account to "Ted". Should I
rename it back to "Owner"?
Also, I assume you mean the "navigation" pane when you said the calendar
should show up there when I open up Windows Calendar. Yes, when I do that
"Ted Smith's Calendar" is there and is the only one listed.

Ted

 

[Jon]

Thanks again Jon. Yes, I did rename the owner account to "Ted". Should I
rename it back to "Owner"?
Also, I assume you mean the "navigation" pane when you said the calendar
should show up there when I open up Windows Calendar. Yes, when I do that
"Ted Smith's Calendar" is there and is the only one listed.

Worth a try renaming it back to Owner. Yes I did mean the Navigation pane.

 

[Ted Smith]

Well Jon, I guess I'm sunk. I've made all the changes and tested, and
tested again but with no success at all. Would it work to totally delete
the Windows Calendar folder (and maybe even WinCal.exe) and let Windows
rebuild it??

Ted

 

[Jon]

Well Jon, I guess I'm sunk. I've made all the changes and tested, and
tested again but with no success at all. Would it work to totally delete
the Windows Calendar folder (and maybe even WinCal.exe) and let Windows
rebuild it??

It would certainly be risky. There's no guarantee that Windows would
rebuild anything; but I suppose you could make a backup of anything you
deleted and restore it in case of any issues. Setting a 'System Restore'
point would also be advisable if you pursue that route.

The only other thing I can suggest is to create your own independent
reminders task, using Task Scheduler. This isn't that difficult. All the
reminders task does is to run the executable

"C:\Program Files\Windows Calendar\WinCal.exe"
with a '/reminder' argument.

If there's something to remind you of it should (in theory) pop up Calendar.
Otherwise it (in theory) schedules a task for the next official remnder.


So you can easily create your own task to do the same. You could say
schedule it to be triggered at log on and from then on run, say, every hour,
or even half-hourly. If reminders **still** don't appear then something
pretty weird is happening ...

 

[Ted Smith]

OK, Jon. I guess I won't mess with deleting stuff at this point. I'll
probably try your suggestions about task scheduler instead. Thanks for all
your help.

Ted