What are these alerts...?

[Kenneth]

Howdy,

I run XP 2...

Often, I hear "alert" sounds that I cannot interpret.

Moments ago, I heard the "Outlook New Mail has Arrived"
default sound twice.

But I am not running Outlook on this machine.

Perplexed, I looked at the complete event viewer tree, but
there are no entries more recent than about an hour.

How can I figure out what might be triggering these alert
sounds?

Thanks,

 

[db]

messenger is probably running in
the background and checking
your mail. but you can check your
own mail via outlook.

if you run msconfig you will
likely find a line item like msmgr
or something. you can disable it
and reboot...

messenger is a service
and if you don't need it, you don't chat,
etc, ... then you can uninstall it via
add/remove programs in the component
section...

- db

Howdy,

I run XP 2...

Often, I hear "alert" sounds that I cannot interpret.

Moments ago, I heard the "Outlook New Mail has Arrived"
default sound twice.

But I am not running Outlook on this machine.

Perplexed, I looked at the complete event viewer tree, but
there are no entries more recent than about an hour.

How can I figure out what might be triggering these alert
sounds?

Thanks,

 

[Kenneth]

Howdy,

I run XP 2...

Often, I hear "alert" sounds that I cannot interpret.

Moments ago, I heard the "Outlook New Mail has Arrived"
default sound twice.

But I am not running Outlook on this machine.

Perplexed, I looked at the complete event viewer tree, but
there are no entries more recent than about an hour.

How can I figure out what might be triggering these alert
sounds?

Thanks,

messenger is probably running in
the background and checking
your mail. but you can check your
own mail via outlook.

if you run msconfig you will
likely find a line item like msmgr
or something. you can disable it
and reboot...

messenger is a service
and if you don't need it, you don't chat,
etc, ... then you can uninstall it via
add/remove programs in the component
section...

- db

Hi db,

This situation just got much more interesting...

I was on the phone with a colleague who had sent me a few
important emails, that I had not received.

As we talked, I was looking at the Outlook screen on my
laptop, and asked that she respond to a message that I had
just sent to her.

She did, and to my surprise, I heard the "alert" sound on my
desktop machine.

I checked, and Outlook was not running on my desktop...

Then, I launched Outlook on the desktop, and her message to
me was there at the top (as were all the "missing" messages.

Then, I opened Task Manager and was surprised to see the
Outlook.exe was running as a Service.

I was surprised for two reasons: First, I did not know that
it could be run as a service, and second because I certainly
did not do anything intentionally to have Outlook run that
way.

I want to be sure that this does not happen again...

If I just disable Outlook as a service will I still be able
to launch it properly when I need it?

Also, how might it have been launched as a service in the
first place?

Thanks for any help you can provide,

 

[Kenneth]

Hi db,

This situation just got much more interesting...

I was on the phone with a colleague who had sent me a few
important emails, that I had not received.

As we talked, I was looking at the Outlook screen on my
laptop, and asked that she respond to a message that I had
just sent to her.

She did, and to my surprise, I heard the "alert" sound on my
desktop machine.

I checked, and Outlook was not running on my desktop...

Then, I launched Outlook on the desktop, and her message to
me was there at the top (as were all the "missing" messages.

Then, I opened Task Manager and was surprised to see the
Outlook.exe was running as a Service.

I was surprised for two reasons: First, I did not know that
it could be run as a service, and second because I certainly
did not do anything intentionally to have Outlook run that
way.

I want to be sure that this does not happen again...

If I just disable Outlook as a service will I still be able
to launch it properly when I need it?

Also, how might it have been launched as a service in the
first place?

Thanks for any help you can provide,

Hello again,

Well... I think I have deciphered this on my own...

I synchronize the two machines versions of Outlook with a
product called SynchPST. That causes Outlook to run as a
service, and, it seems, after my last synchronization, I
neglected to unload it.

Thanks,

 

[db]

hello kenneth,

glad you figured it out.

on occasion when i double click on
my outlook, the program window doesn't
appear. so i double click on the icon again
and still nothing.

however, it appears in the task manager. so
i simply kill the process and when i double
the outlook icon again, the window opens
up.

don't know why it does this. but i hope
this can be a useful tip as well...

- db

Hi db,

This situation just got much more interesting...

I was on the phone with a colleague who had sent me a few
important emails, that I had not received.

As we talked, I was looking at the Outlook screen on my
laptop, and asked that she respond to a message that I had
just sent to her.

She did, and to my surprise, I heard the "alert" sound on my
desktop machine.

I checked, and Outlook was not running on my desktop...

Then, I launched Outlook on the desktop, and her message to
me was there at the top (as were all the "missing" messages.

Then, I opened Task Manager and was surprised to see the
Outlook.exe was running as a Service.

I was surprised for two reasons: First, I did not know that
it could be run as a service, and second because I certainly
did not do anything intentionally to have Outlook run that
way.

I want to be sure that this does not happen again...

If I just disable Outlook as a service will I still be able
to launch it properly when I need it?

Also, how might it have been launched as a service in the
first place?

Thanks for any help you can provide,

Hello again,

Well... I think I have deciphered this on my own...

I synchronize the two machines versions of Outlook with a
product called SynchPST. That causes Outlook to run as a
service, and, it seems, after my last synchronization, I
neglected to unload it.

Thanks,

 

[Kenneth]

hello kenneth,

glad you figured it out.

on occasion when i double click on
my outlook, the program window doesn't
appear. so i double click on the icon again
and still nothing.

however, it appears in the task manager. so
i simply kill the process and when i double
the outlook icon again, the window opens
up.

don't know why it does this. but i hope
this can be a useful tip as well...

Hi again,

I do appreciate that suggestion, and have had similar
hassles in the past.

All the best,