To free up disk space, Outlook Express can compact messages. This may take up to a few minutes.

Anonymous
2010-01-04T16:48:32+00:00

Every few minutes the message :

"To free up disk space, Outlook Express can compact messages.  This may take up to a few minutes."

This is irrelevant for two reasons :

(1) I do not use Outlook Express, and therefore have no messages to compact.

(2) I do not need to free up disk space as I am currently using only five per cent of a very large disk.

Could someone please tell me how I get rid off this very irritating message.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Internet and connectivity

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Anonymous
2012-06-10T21:36:30+00:00

Here are the things I did that resolved the issue for me:

I reset Compact Check Count to 0, and I uninstalled Windows Search 4.0. 

As for Outlook Express: I don't use it.

Thank you for the reply...and thanks for the advice & info.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-performance/outlook-express-can-compact-messages-how-do-i-turn/b7e41d7f-d0db-4930-9c64-19e3c7b7d5cf?tm=1339359499078&page=1#_self

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Anonymous
2010-01-17T22:00:57+00:00

Try resetting the compact count in the registry:

  1. Start the registry editor.
  2. Open this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities{identity}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0

where identity is a string of letters, numbers, and dashes. 3. Set the value of Compact Check Count to 0. 4. Close the registry editor.

For more information, see Why You Should Let Outlook Express Compact Messages When It Asks You .

Warning: Incorrectly editing the registry might damage your system and prevent Windows from starting. Before doing it, back up your important data, make a restore point, and make sure you know how to repair a damaged system.

Boulder Computer Maven

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional

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  1. Anonymous
    2011-07-21T02:03:46+00:00

     If you don't use OE, you might try making the inbox.dbx file (hidden) read only.  That prevents OE proper from opening and it might prevent the incrementing of the counter, in that the 3rd party program may not be able to access OE, and so it wouldn't get incremented.

     

    Hi - good suggestion

    I had already renamed the .dbx files to .olddbx, but when I went back to look at them the .dbx files had been recreated.

    I set the .dbx files to hidden and read only

    On reboot a message came up saying Outlook express could not be started. (message comes up twice) I checked the logs and it was windows search that put the message up.

    Checked the counter and it had been incremented by 2!

    So back to the drawing board

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-07-21T11:39:30+00:00

    rats!  It was a false hope. <G>

    Something is re-enabling WS to check OE's settings and its not WS, because others would have reported this being a problem, so my guess this time (<G>) is that there is something in the startup items (see Bruce's list) that is somehow re-enabling it.  Try going to Start | Run and type msconfig and see if you can find anything running at startup that you can disable that might be affecting this.  Otherwise, you can stick your reg file in the startup list and run the reg file to clear the count every time you start Windows.

    steve

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-07-27T00:53:07+00:00

    Now I have had a problem where Windows Search failed to find one of my files. It was in an indexed folder and sitting there plain as day on the hard drive, but Windows Search just couldn't see it. So that's the final straw.

    So I have now ditched Windows Search and am trialling Lookeen and X1 Professional Client as alternatives.

    Thanks everyone for all the help - at least this thread should be useful for others.

    EDIT Aug 9, 2011

    To help anyone else trying to ditch windows search, I evaluated  Lookeen and X1 Professional Client, but neither of them have proper wild card searches so are non-runners for me.

    Back to using the standard Outlook search (slow, lacks functionality, but stable and does have wildcard (ie part word) search)

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