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

You know - there are about 20 fixes to this so far. I'm about to see if Richard and Chandrakanta are correct... nothing else worked above this entry.

So - the interesting thing is that I didn't have this problem until two things happened......

First - I made Thunderbird my default email client because their SPAM filter ROCKs.  And by now we've all learned that Redmond is making money on SPAM.

Two - I upgraded office to the new Office 10. 

Bingo - the message starts showing up, so I'll pontificate just a little more and say that my own belief is, Microsoft does these little SW quirks ON PURPOSE as a way to say F&*^ Y(* to all of us that really have found a better solution - they'll just make it hard for us.

Truth is, with open platforms, death of the desktop and impending death of laptops with web based software, their days are numbered as they've consistantly shown little growth in visions in software other than fixing the bugs they didn't kill last time.

Had the same problem myself starting a couple of days ago.  Let me add my thanks to the chorus, Steve.  Outstanding.

Tony Lima

Hi All

I'm with the majority here just wanting a fix!!

I've revisited this discussion about once every 3 months since last March, mainly to find the Registry key to reset the compact count (because I have better things to spend my time on than trying to remember that kind of thing)

1. Outlook Express has never been installed on this machine (although as it is a "corporate image", it may have been active at some point in the build history, I have no way of knowing)
2. it is definitely not active in add and remove programs
3. it is definitely not present in start up
4. windows search definitely has all of the boxes which could cause it index OE unchecked
5. I haven't tried letting it run, mainly because I don't trust what it will do if it can't find the right files
6. Nero has never been installed either

I've just reset the registry key to 0 (again) however if I recheck after rebooting it will have incremented to 1 and will continue to do so

So any more suggestions would be gratefully received.

 

Using WIN XP SP3, Office 2003, Windows search installed

There is never going to be a "fix" because OE is out of production. This is the entire list of know things that can cause it. There is more than Windows Search and Nero. Have you explored the corrupt SP3 install possibility?

<Repost>

The problem is with the registry counter that gives you the prompt after 100 closings of OE. It is being increased quicker than it should be and even if you are not using OE.

There is a growing number of programs and actions that may be causing this after installing SP3. Do you have any of the following?

IBM Rapid Access keyboard (driver) RAKDLL.DLL

Windows {Desktop} Search

Mailwasher

Nero plug-in(s)

Opening EML files while OE is closed will also contribute to the registry count.

Various anti-virus, anti-spyware and third party firewalls, especially if they were running when you installed SP3.

Archived thread discussing this issue in June 2008:

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general/browse_frm/thread/fcd35fbfa457fd6f

In the case of Windows Search, (the #1 offender), you have to tell it to stop indexing OE.

Windows Search. Set Desktop Search Options:

http://www.microsoft.com/australia/windows/desktopsearch/search/options.mspx

In the Windows Control Panel | Indexing Options | Modify. Clear the check box for Outlook Express.

In the case of Nero Scout, see Item 2.3 on page 8 here.

ftp://ftp6.nero.com/user_guides/nero8/scout/NeroScout_Enu.pdf

In the option to exclude selected file types from indexing, be sure to add these file types:

.eml, .dbx & .nws

Bruce Hagen

MS-MVP Oct. 1, 2004 ~ Sept. 30, 2010

Imperial Beach, CA