MS ***Finally*** made an improvement to help the millions of people that
don't back up OE. Count your blessings and live with it.

This is due to the OE update, (KB923694). Now when you compact, a copy of
your dbx files are sent to the Recycle Bin in the event that something
should go wrong and messages, or entire folders, are lost when you are
compacting.

Many people do not back up Outlook Express on a regular basis. This new
mandatory backup is something people have been asking for quite awhile as we
spend a lot of time helping people getting their messages back, and they
have to purchase a tool to recover messages.

You can empty the Recycle Bin any time you want and the bak files will go
away until you compact again.

For more info, see the information outlined in red he
www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#2

If you don't currently back up OE regularly, I would suggest you get this,
or a similar tool, (freeware):

This freeware tool backs up everything in OE in seconds. Disregard what is
written in red. That is referring to a different program.

Outlook Express Quick Backup (OEQB):
http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA

"Earl Partridge" wrote in message
nk.net...
IE/OE7 - XP Pro
I've done a little reading on this "To Free up space OE can compact...."
and the fact that I can do a manual folder compact. How can I prevent the
deleted/compacted stuff from going into the Recycle Bin?

I did a manual All Folder compact 3 consecutive times, no other action
between
the compacting, and each time 82 items were placed in my Recycle Bin.