XP offering to compact messages

  • Thread starter Thread starter P. Jayant
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P. Jayant

I meticulously delete all Newsgroup messages and all unwanted mail messages
every week as a result of which there is hardly any mass of messages for XP
to compact. But XP keeps bugging me asking me whether messages should be
compacted. I have two questions about this harassment:

1) Even if the messages are compacted, are they stored in some Folder? XP
does not tell me about it any time?
2) Even when a message is compacted, does its Header show up in the InBox or
the Newsgroup and can the original uncompacted message be seen by clicking
on the Header?

Unless XP clarifies these points along with the constant bugging message
box, I would not feel confident to say 'yes' or no to the bugging question.

P. Jayant
 
|>I meticulously delete all Newsgroup messages and all unwanted mail messages
|>every week as a result of which there is hardly any mass of messages for XP
|>to compact. But XP keeps bugging me asking me whether messages should be
|>compacted. I have two questions about this harassment:

While MS does things differently, I'd like to think they kept this the
same as the rest of the world.

In Agent when I compact my newsgroups it removes all the deleted
messages (empty space) making the Data files much smaller.
 
P. Jayant said:
I meticulously delete all Newsgroup messages and all unwanted mail messages
every week as a result of which there is hardly any mass of messages for XP
to compact. But XP keeps bugging me asking me whether messages should be
compacted. I have two questions about this harassment:

1) Even if the messages are compacted, are they stored in some Folder? XP
does not tell me about it any time?
2) Even when a message is compacted, does its Header show up in the InBox or
the Newsgroup and can the original uncompacted message be seen by clicking
on the Header?

Unless XP clarifies these points along with the constant bugging message
box, I would not feel confident to say 'yes' or no to the bugging question.

P. Jayant
Click to expand...

Unless you compact, sooner or later you can say bye bye to all of your
messages. If you archive your messages in any of the default folders
such as Inbox or Sent Items, sooner or later you can say bye bye to all
of your messages. If you let any .dbx file get larger than 100MB,
you're, sooner or later ...

If you don't want to see the pop up that asks you to compact again,
download this patch:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...78-f325-4a95-98c2-98af2256ccc3&DisplayLang=en

and compact manually on a regular basis.

Compacting compacts the empty space that is left behind when you delete
a message.

Alias
 
P. Jayant said:
I meticulously delete all Newsgroup messages and all unwanted mail messages
every week as a result of which there is hardly any mass of messages for XP
to compact.
Click to expand...

just deleting a message does NOT remove the "white space" from the files
without compacting. if you compare the size of an OE folder before and after
deleting a message, you will find they are still the same size. You must
compact the folders to remove this "white space"

But XP keeps bugging me asking me whether messages should be compacted. I
have two questions about this harassment:

1) Even if the messages are compacted, are they stored in some Folder? XP
does not tell me about it any time?
Click to expand...

Compacting does NOTHING to the messages or the folders they are currently in
other than remove the white space - see above.
2) Even when a message is compacted, does its Header show up in the InBox
or the Newsgroup and can the original uncompacted message be seen by
clicking on the Header?
Click to expand...

Again see above - all compacting does is to remove white space.
 
The messages are not compacted.
The folder containing the messages is compacted to remove deleted messages.

Tools, Options, Maintenance tab for newsgroups will only remove the message
body.
Clicking on a newsgroup header will download the message body.
 
OE doesn't remove deleted messages, it only flags them to be removed at
a later time. The items are not removed until the folders with deleted
items are compacted. You need to compact all your OE folders regularly.
This saves disk space and speeds up OE.

Read this...
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/community/columns/filecorruption.mspx#EWAAC

The whole article...
The Other E-Mail Threat: File Corruption in Outlook Express
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/community/columns/filecorruption.mspx

Scroll down to Compact all folders here...
An Outlook Express basic repair kit
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/community/columns/oerepair.mspx

Compact Your OE Folders
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

[Folders.dbx is the master index of an OE store folder and is required
for OE to run.]]
How OE stores files on your hard disk
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/files/store.htm#storemain

[[It is largely for this reason that the background compaction feature has
been removed in Windows XP SP2. Now Outlook Express will compact
automatically only after you have opened and closed Outlook Express 100
times. It will do so not in the background, when you might be busy doing
other things on the computer, but rather when you close Outlook Express for
that 100th time. Do not cancel this compaction, nor use your computer until
it is finished. For best results however, you should still compact all
folders on a regular basis, such as weekly or bi-weekly.]]
From...
The Other E-Mail Threat: File Corruption in Outlook Express
By Tom Koch
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/community/columns/filecorruption.mspx

Open Outlook Express.
To make sure you aren't receiving any mail, so your Inbox or any other
folders aren't active you need to Work Offline.
File | Work Offline (Or hit Alt + F + W).
To make sure no folders are open, highlight Outlook Express in the
Folders List.
Close the Folders List, click The X or View | Layout | Unslelect Folders
List.
File | Folder | Compact All Folders (Or hit Alt + F + F + F) .
Don't do anything until your hard drive has quit thrashing.
Don't forget; File | UNCheck: Work Offline (Or hit Alt + F + W).

[[You MUST use File | Folder | Compact All Folders to avoid store
corruption. No other compaction method will compact the critical
index file, "folders.dbx". ]]

Tom Koch, MVP for IE/Outlook Express
http://www.insideOE.com/

Compact Your OE Folders
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

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