Completely OT; Windows Mail

[The Medway Handyman]

Can anyone help with Windows Mail?

SWMBO's PC runs Vista & uses Windows Mail for e-mail. It shares the broadband modem my PC uses & my e-mail is fine. Both our web browsers work perfectly.

Last week her PC froze & we had to reinstall everything, since then the problem with e-mail has occurred.

Scenario - Blueyonder webmail inbox shows 4 e-mails. When you click send/receive on the PC a box appears saying that 4 messages are being received. They vanish without trace. Not in the inbox, drafts, to keep or junk mail folders. The e-mails then disappear from the webmail inbox.

The odd thing is, the odd e-mail does get through :-(

Virgin helpline has checked connections, sent test e-mails etc & say every thing is OK. They have reset passwords twice, still no go.

Checked all the settings myself & again with the Virgin helpline bloke, everything seems fine.

They put me onto their PC helpline who suggested a system restore. Earliest restore point available was 25/2/09, no option to override. PC went through the motions, but wouldn't restore.

E-mail still not working.

Any ideas? Sorry, stuck with Vista & Windows Mail.

[David in Normandy]

Surely you don't have to be stuck with Windows Mail? I use Thunderbird with Vista. I gave Windows Mail a go and abandoned it fairly quickly due to various disappointments with it.

If you are stuck, then this may be the way to go. If you use the computer and rely on emails for business then you cannot afford to lose them.

At least with Thunderbird, if my Vista computer failed I could simply restore my Thunderbird data folder to an XP laptop and be up and running again immediately. That would be impossible to do with Windows Mail.

[Graham.]

I don't use Vista myself but I assume Windows Mail is not too different from OE. Until you find out what is causing this I suggest you go into the advanced settings of your email account and check the box that says "leave a copy of messages on the server"

[The Natural Philosopher]

Did you check the memory/disks/fans? often a completely weird software behaviour is a symptom of hardware on the blink..

Sounds like corrupted mail folders..

Like others, definitely recommend Thunderbird as a less virus prone and better mail agent.

[Rod]

And remember you *can* use Virgin's web mail service to see what is there, even IIRC forward it to another account (e.g. Google mail).

(I use TB with Virgin's mail servers, and Google mail and other POP3 mail servers. Can use POP or IMAP.)

[Clive]

It's very easy to backup and restore the mail and news in Outlook Express. All you do is copy a few files. I did that when I reinstalled software and even saved all the mail/news account settings.

[Rod]

Is it just as easy from Windows Mail (under Vista) to anything else (e.g. OE under XP)?

[The Medway Handyman]

Thanks to everyone who replied, I took the advice & installed Thunderbird as the default e-mail client & it now works a treat.

So simple even I managed to DIY!

A pox upon Windows Mail.

[R]

You could have used Outlook instead.

Then you'd have a diary, to do list, tasks and whatever else you need

[Steve Firth]

And a pile of s**te.

[geoff]

mail2web will also do that

[John Rumm]

that, and you would have to pay for it...

[David in Normandy]

Can Windows mail folders be copied to XP and opened using Outlook Express? I thought it was a one way process? i.e. OE mail files can be opened in Windows Mail but not the other way around?