wrote:
On Oct 22, 5:05 am, "PA Bear, MS MVP" wrote:
ATTN anyone who's monitoring this thread or seeing the same behavior:
If you're running Windows Defender, please reply to this post and tell
me so. Thanks.

PA Bear,
I have the same problem and am running Windows Defender. Put together
this summary for your information:
I have been experiencing a range of 'cannot display folder/message'
for about two months. Have searched the web for a
solution without success; this site seems to offer the most pertinent
information aong with the promise that the 'fix' will be
psoted here when found.
My computer specs are XP Home SP2 with all updates, dual core CPU, 2
GB RAM, two 250 GB HDs, Vista/DX10 compatible video
card all of which makes a mockery of the warnings I get about low
disk space and memory as a likely cause of this problem.
I have tried most of the suggestions mentioned on this and other web
sites, new identity, compacting folders offline and reducing large
folders by moving emails, etc without any success. My latest and most
drastic experiment was as follows: I closed OE6, moved all the mail
folders (dbx files) to another folder and re-opened OE6 which gave me
a pristine set of default folders. When some mail arrived and I
replied to a few messages it was not long before the 'display' problem
occurred again!
A friend suggested I use Thunderbird instead of Outlook Express so
installed the latest version and, after some fiddling with
Gmail settings, got it working but I have to say I much prefer Outlook
Express and thus returned to the quest for a 'fix' to this
current frustrating problem. Was using AVG-Free antivirus - email
scanning disabled - now trying Avast with no change to the
'cannot display' situation.
Read somewhere that lack of 'resources' is often the cause of strange
behaviour with some programs so I opened Task
Manager and, on the Processes tab, added columns for Handles, User
Objects and GDI Objects. Not being a Windows

programmer I don't know what these terms mean but I can understand
numbers and when, say, the Handles used by
msimn.exe rises to 55,000+ and the next highest number is 1,500
(svchost.exe) I am left wondering if just maybe this is an area
worth investigating? The current Task Manager figures for my Outlook
Express and Thunderbird (just for comparison) a
Comparing OE6 and Thunderbird2:
Mem Usage 42 MB 24MB
VM Usage 16MB 15MB
Handles 55,421 189
User Objects 135 61
GDI Objects 229 96

With only the default mail folders, with 22 emails in the Inbox and 1
in Drafts, restarting OE6 reduced the Handles figure to
374, User Objects to 112 and GDI objects to 172. By the way, when the
"Cannot display...' message occurs now I can restore
normal operation by selecting, say, the Drafts folder and then return
to the Inbox where previously I would have to close and
re-open OE6 or sometimes reboot the computer.
Hope this is of some help and that Microsoft, or somebody somewhere
resolves this problem in the near future!!!!

[OE's got a wry sense of humor: When I tried to reply to your post, I got
that d*** error again!]

If you read through the posts to this thread, you'll find that nothing
you've mentioned (i.e., Defender; anti-virus app installed; computer specs)
appears to be the cause of the behavior.

What the size of your entire message store folder
(http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#storemain)?

...By the way, when the
"Cannot display...' message occurs now I can restore
normal operation by selecting, say, the Drafts folder and then return
to the Inbox...

Doesn't fix it here, and I suspect that, for you, it's only a temporary fix.

I've had OE up and running for well over 24 hours (using it almost
constantly while I'm awake) before encountering the behavior. Conversely,
I've seen the behavior occur several times in 1 hour or less. sigh

Again, if and when a resolution is found, I'll post about it in this thread.
Thanks for adding yourself to the every-growing list of sufferers, which
certainly does NOT appear to include all OE/WinXP SP2 users.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.org/