Maybe I spoke too soon about AVAST. Others seem to indicate it works fine.
One always should turn off email scanning regardless of AV program.

Watch out for falling trees. G

steve

"Mike" wrote in message
...
Steve,

Thanks for your further suggestions, I was able to find and restore all my
old mail and was sittin here fat, dumb and happy again when the local
gales
blew a tree onto my telephone line just up the road and I was without
email
again from Sat til Wed.

Yesterday I downloaded the Avast AV software but today my email was not
working again! A system restore to before loading Avast fixed it. It
seems like Avast was the problem. I first of all downloaded the free
Avast
but it quickly decided that I needed to spend $49 on buying the product.
Have I wasted my money? What should I do now?

I would value your advice.

Mike

"Steve Cochran" wrote:

Glad to hear it.

1. If everything is working okay, then just delete it. It was a backup
"just in case".

2. Find your old message store directory by searching for *.eml. Then
you
can drag the search results from the results window into an WinMail
folder.
Or you can go to File | Import | Messages and point to that directory.

3. Get rid of Norton and get an antivirus product that is less invasive.
www.avast.com appears to have one some are saying works well.

steve

"Mike" wrote in message
...
Steve and Gary,

Hurray, hurray! You have a satisfied customer! Steve's last
suggestion
worked. Thanks very much indeed for sorting this one out - being
without
access to my emails for what seems like 3 years but is actually only 3
days
has been a very worrying nightmare. I am not sure what is the
cyberspace
equivalent of buying you a beer but if you are ever in the fens of
north
Cambridgeshire drop in and see me.

I have three remaining issues which I would value your advice on.

1. What do I do with the copy of the HKEY file I made - delete it?
2. How do I get access to my old emails which I understand were in the
files I made copies of earlier in my documents folder, when I deleted
the
winmail folders? (I do not need to copy them all into the my new mail
folder structure but I do need to get into them).
3. What do I do with the disconnected Norton Antivirus. I understand I
do
not need it for winmail but does it need to be there at all for example
to
check stuff I download from the internet or to open attachments sent to
me?

Thanks again for everything so far.

Mike


"Steve Cochran" wrote:

As Gary says, you need to paste the entire line I supplied with the
quotes.

If that did nothing then I don't know what else you can do except
maybe
delete all the registry entries for WinMail. The junk filter info is
in
the
registry and that might have been corrupted.

Go to Start | Search and type regedit. Then choose continue to allow
it
and
then read the help file.

Then go to this registry key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Mail

and right click it and choose Export to back it up.

Then make sure WinMail is closed and right click on the key again and
choose
Delete.

Then try starting Winmail.

steve


"Mike" wrote in message
...

Steve,

Thanks very much for your patience with me but I am not there yet.

To be honest I did not understand your instruction below! When you
say
'paste the following' do you mean (the bit in brackets):
("C:\Program
Files\Windows Mail\WinMail.exe" OCInstallReinstallOE), including
the
quotes
or just (C:\Program Files\Windows Mail\WinMail.exe) without quotes.
If
the
later what does (OCInstallReinstallOE) mean? I did both and
nothing
happened - but not every combination with and without quotes.

I have been using winmail for about a month and in that time have
dealt
with
hundreds of emails - thousands if you count the junk it has cut out.
I
do
recall a message some days ago that I needed to compress something
but
I
was
busy at the time and didn't do it. The problem came after I had
deleted a
load of junk mail and the contents of the recycle bin (possibly the
next
time
I logged on). The fault message ".......,initialize junk
filtering."
seems
to suggest there is a simple key sequence I should follow but how
you
to
do
it without being in winmail seems a problem.

Is it possible to reinstall winmail from the vista disc that came
with
my
computer? But if I do so what happens to all my mail and contacts
accumulated
over the last month. (I am still recovering from the transfer from
outlook
express to winmail!).

Many thanks so far, I do appreciate all the time you have spent on
this,
especially as I now read that you are a volunteer and not the
official
MS
helpline as I thought originally.

Mike


"Steve Cochran" wrote:

Well, let's try this.

Go to Start | Search and paste this and hit return:

"C:\Program Files\Windows Mail\WinMail.exe" OCInstallReinstallOE

See if WinMail will start after that. Otherwise it looks to me as
if
there
was a bad install. Did it ever work?

steve

"Mike" wrote in message
...
Steve,

Thanks, I have now done that and still the same old error message
comes
up!

To recap my antivirus is removed and my windows mail directory is
empty, I
have run WMutil again and rebooted.



"Steve Cochran" wrote:

Hi Mike,

You can ignore the reference to the registry key. Just move all
the
contents (everything) to another directory. Create one under
Documents
so
you know where it is and then move everything to there so that
the
contents
of the message store directory is completely blank. Then
WinMail
should
start okay and you can add your accounts and then try importing
the
messages
back from the directory to which you moved the stuff.

steve

"Mike" wrote in message
...
Steve,

Thanks. Please understand that I am out in the sticks and on
my
own, I
do
not have a great deal of computer literacy and I do not have
an
office
full
of eager computer buffs to explain PC terms I am not familiar
with
e.g.
what
is a 'WinMail registry key', etc.

I have pasted the WMUtil line into my address bar and found
my
way
to
/Windows Mail/ via Appdata/Local/Microsoft/ etc. However I
have
now
lost
the plot as to what I do now. Do I go back to your post of
May
22
1.55
pm
and remove everything from the WindowsMail directory including
all
folders(5)
files (15) and 'jig saw' icons (3)?

Where do I move all this to ?

And by the way what is a 'WinMail registry key'.

Be gentle with me.

Mike


"Steve Cochran" wrote:

Duh. The directory is found under the Store Root value under
the
WinMail
registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Mail

(see www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx#wm )

If you load up my WMUtil program, it will also load up the
path
to
the
message store in the text box at the top which you can copy
and
paste
into
Explorer's address bar. They are hidden files and folders
also.

Sorry about that. G

steve

"Mike" wrote in message
...
Steve,

When you say 'go to tools' do you mean tools in Windows
mail?
I
cannot
open
Windows mail - that's my problem. Is there somewhere else I
should
be
looking?

Mike

"Steve Cochran" wrote:

The only chance now is to wipe out the database and see if
it
will
start
then.

Go to Tools | Options | Advanced | Maintenance | Store
Folder
to
find
the
message store location. Then move everything under that
Windows
Mail
directory to another directory, so that the Windows Mail
directory
is
completely empty. Then restart WinMail and it will open
fresh
with
nothing
in the database. You can then add your accounts and if
they
work
correctly
then you can import messages from the directory to which
you
moved
the
files
back into WinMail (see www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx#wm2wm).

If it still doesn't start, then post back and we can try
other
things.

steve

"Mike" wrote in message
...
Gary, Thanks for your help. I completely removed Norton
Antivirus
and
it
still did not work. I also tried the WMUtil again and
rebooted
and
still
it
fails to work. The only small change is that the box
for
MS
Mail
appears