FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  572 (03/07/07)

Q. I do not keep many messages in Outlook Express but I do have about 16 local folders. Often I get a message that says it will ‘compact folders’ to save space, and I should press OK or Cancel. Despite selecting cancel this process often starts automatically and I find that it will completely wipe out all the messages in some groups whilst leaving other, older, folders untouched. How can I stop this happening and can I restore the missing files?

Graham Trow, Bromsgrove

A. For some reason I have been getting a lot of calls lately for help with this unwelcome feature, which can result in lost messages. In earlier versions of OE Folder Compacting was a manual option but Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, decided to make it automatic and set it to launch after the 100th time OE is opened. To be fair if left to its own devices it works reasonably well, but it all goes horribly wrong if the process is interrupted, by switching the PC off, or putting it into Hibernation or Standby modes. If that happens then messages can be lost or corrupted

Fortunately the missing messages can usually be restored, but you’ll probably have to shell out for a recovery program like Diskinternals Outlook Express Repair Tool, Repair Tool for Outlook Express or Scandbx.

The second part of your question is harder to answer because this function is 'hard-coded' into OE and as far as I’m aware there is no way to switch it off. However, I do have a couple of workarounds, which will stop it bothering you, for at least 100 OE openings at any rate.

You can reset the counter by compacting the folders manually  – and remember not to interrupt the process. You’ll find this option by going to Tools > Options > Maintenance and click the ‘Clean Up Now’ button. Otherwise you can reset the counter in the Registry, though I have say this procedure is not for novices, so remember to make a backup first, and you try it entirely at your own risk.

Open Regedit and make your way to:  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{GUID}\Software\

Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0 (where GUID or Global Unique Identifier is a long string of numbers and letters). In the right hand pane right-click on Compact Check Count, select Modify and change the value data to 0 (it's a hex value, so don't worry if it's showing a letter). Exit Regedit and remember to reset the counter every so often, or when the message next appears.

Q. I would appreciate your advice on a problem with a freezing cursor. This annoying habit occurs frequently and I have to close down and restart the machine. I was told to press F8 on start up go to Safe Mode and if the cursor doesn’t lock up it is not a mouse fault, which I did, and it was okay. I did a System Restore test to March, which seemed to work for a while, but stuck again on a subsequent switch on. Have I got a problem with something or a virus etc?

Tony Evans, via email

A. I think we can discount viruses and malware, and I am presuming that it is only the mouse pointer that’s affected, and not a system-wide freeze. (If it is only the mouse you should still be able to highlight menus and make selections using the keyboard Alt and Cursor keys).

A sticky or frozen mouse usually points to a driver problem, and occasionally a hardware fault, but you have eliminated that as it works okay in Safe Mode. The first thing to do is pop along to the manufacturer’s website and download and install the latest driver for your model.

If that makes no difference proceed to step two uninstalling the existing driver and any software utilities. They should appear Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel; providing it’s not an unusually fancy mouse the standard Windows drivers should be able to control it.

After uninstalling the mouse software open Device Manager (Winkey + Break > Hardware > Device Manager), double click on ‘Mice and Pointing devices’, right click on your mouse entry, select Uninstall and reboot. Windows should try and install one of its own drivers and hopefully this will prove more reliable. 

Q. After a recent hard drive failure I decided to take your advice and ‘clone’ the new drive, so that I could quickly switch drives if it ever happened again. I used a free application I found on the web to do the cloning and it seemed to work okay. I set the new drive as a slave, so I could keep it up to date and it all works. However, out of curiosity I decided to see if the new drive would work and set it to Master. Windows Clearly didn’t like it and it displays an error message saying ‘Could not read from the selected boot disk, check hardware’. What went wrong, and is it fixable?

Mike Jameson, via email

A. The error message is actually coming form your motherboard, which cannot find the information needed to load Windows There are several possibilities but the chances are it’s due to a missing or corrupt Master Boot Record (MBR) or a damaged boot.ini file. Load your XP installation disc and the computer should boot up, when you get to the Welcome screen press ‘R’ to start the Recovery Console. Log on and at the command prompt type ‘FIXMBR’ (without the quotes) and follow the prompts.

If that doesn’t work then you can use the Recovery Console to repair the boot.ini file. As before use the installation CD to boot to the command prompt and this time enter ’bootcfg /rebuild’ and once again, no quotes and follow the prompts. Providing the cloned Windows files are intact it should now boot as normal from the hard drive.

---end---

© R. Maybury 2007 1907