1. Understand that what you see in your Hotmail folders in OE only mirrors
what's on the server, so it's not necessary to back-up any of your OE's
Hotmail folders. The server is your backup.


Thanks for this. I wish it were true but in fact the Sent Items in the
Hotmail webmail has posts that never got downloaded to OE. It jumps straight
from the 8th of August to the 21st, while in webmail it has many in the
intermediate period.


...files become doubled

2. See http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/why.htm#dupes


...every time I reinstall xp

I suppose we could ask why you keep finding it necessary to reinstall
WinXP,


For some reason it keeps going wrong. Particularly when I use
processor-intensive programmes.


but...

3. Your current Identity is probably damaged, especially if its the
default Main Identity. Try one or more of your accounts in a new Named
Identity (File Identities Add new identity). Assuming all is well,
(1) compact all folders in the old identity, (2) import messages from the
old identity into the new one [Don't bother with any Hotmail folders; see
#1 above], and then (3) delete the old one (File Identities Manage
Identities).


OK will try this.

To avoid such corruption in futu

- Don't use Inbox or Sent Items to archive messages. Move them to local
folders created for this purpose.

- Empty Deleted Items folder daily.


- Your anti-virus application's email scanning feature can also cause
corruption. Disable it. It provides no additional protection.


I mentioned this to the repairs technician at the computer shop. They said
that it was like putting a burglar alarm on your house and leaving the back
door open. I must say I get so much conflicting information on issues like
this (including firewall advice) that I end up totally confused.

Cheers,

Johnny
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE/OE, Shell/User, Security), Aumha.org VSOP, DTS-L.org


Johnny wrote:
Are you stating that you see messages in the Sent Items folder at
www.hotmail.com which do not show up when you open OE to your Hotmail
Sent Items folder (not the Local Sent Items folder)?

Yes.

Do messages in the Inbox at www.hotmail.com show up when you open OE to
your Hotmail Inbox?

Yes there seems to be no problem with downloading the Inbox. Indeed I
wish I could stop the download deluge every time I reinstall xp and
recofigure OE (files become doubled, for one thing; I want only the saved
.dbx files to be configured, as in these I have deleted spam) while
keeping them safe on my server.

Is this sudden, new behavior or an ongoing problem?

No, I have had this pattern for years. Even stranger is that even when I
save the .dbx files, whether by OE Quick Backup or, as I recall, by other
means, there's always a group of mails covering a period, always just
before the time of the backup, that are not saved. On this occasion there
were many months of Sent Items files that I was saving, and no large
periods between occasions when I have sent messages either by Hotmail or
the other account (UK2) I have on OE (in fact I have been using both a
great deal recently). But the Hotmail backup for some reason didn't save
the last 2 weeks' worth of sent items and the UK2 didn't save the last
three days of sent items. The messages were definitely recorded in OE
before the backup, though.
Johnny wrote:
I notice my Hotmail Sent Items folder does not download from webmail
to OE. Is there any way to rectify this?