[RESOLVED] Outlook Express keeps wanting to compact messages, but...

[BlackBeanie]

I don't even use Outlook Express! I must Outlook. OE has never been even setup. Yet, everytime I start up the computer, a msg pops up "To free up disk space Outlook Express can compact messages. This may take up to a few minutes."
I don't see a place in OE to disable it, so I actually use Add/Remove SW to uninstall OE in Windows Components. Still, the message pops up. What can i do?

[und3rtak3r]

This may seem to be from left Field:

If you're using Windows Search, right click the System Tray icon, select Windows Search Options. When the Indexing Options dialogue box appears, click the Modify button at the bottom. Find Microsoft Outlook Express in the list, clear the check box, click OK. Microsoft Outlook Express should no longer appear in the "Index these locations:" list. Close the dialogue box.

It is the best answer I could find that fits your situation

[BlackBeanie]

Thank you. Unfortunately, it doesn't work.

[und3rtak3r]

The fact you never used Outlook Express (OEXP) is a puzzle.. (edit: The Windows Live search is the cause) there is a setting in the registry that is used by OEXP to raise the prompt.. typically it looks at 100 uses of OEXP then raises the warning - not sure of the version it was enabled V6 if I remember.. (edit: you would think that after uninstalling this entry would be deleted but not so it would seem)

IF you still had OEXP installed the next step would be to:
Manually get OEXP to compact its Database. Then edit the registry to reset the warning number.

Then If you were confident we could edit the entry in the Registry? or would you prefer to wait to see if anyone else has a better answer first?

/Edit: the details of the registry change needed:

After changing Windows Search Options, you may still have to reset the OE count. Even though Windows Search is no longer looking at OE, OE has already opened the 100 times to give you this message.

Try this:
Edit the registry manually to reset the counter manually:

1. Close Outlook Express and all message windows.
2. Click Start, click Run and type without quotes "regedit".
3. Navigate to this key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{GUID}\Software\Microsoft\Outlo ok Express\5.0

where GUID is the long number used for your Identity.
4. In the right-hand pane, double-click "Compact Check Count", then change the value to zero.
5. Close regedit and restart your computer.

[BlackBeanie]

After the reg edit, I rebooted the computer but it won't boot back up. It shows a blank screen after the initial XP splash. I am sure it has nothing to do w/ the reg edit b/c I have been having issues with the comp for the past couple of days. Just this afternoon, all at a sudden it crashed and did a memory dump. Anyway, just to be safe, I boot with UBCD4WIN and restore the registry to a couple days earlier. Comp still won't boot, now I boot into the Recover Console w/ the XP CD and doing a chkdsk /r. It's going VERY, very slow. Have a feeling that the HDD is dying, YIKES!

[BlackBeanie]

Eventually, did a successful repair install after a couple of failed attempt. After that the Outlook message didn't pop up anymore. Laptop id still very slow but that's another topic,

[jdc2000]

ON the slowness, how much free hard disk space and how much memory do you have on it? It might also be worthwhile running the manufacturer's hard drive diagnostic software on the drive just to check for any issues, especially if the drive light is on most of the time.

[BlackBeanie]

Eventually, I ended up reinstalling XP from scratch. It's OK now. And this time I make a disk image for easy recovery in the future.