I asked a question about Receiving messages on Startup about a month ago,
and Bruce Hagen referred me to the MS article 'How to Create and Use
Identities in Outlook Express'. Thanks, Bruce -- sorry for not getting back
to you earlier. Since then, I've also looked at Tom Koch's InsideOE and
Steve Cochrane's OE site.

Bruce suggested that I may have a damaged identity, and I suspect that is
correct. But I'm reluctant to take drastic action without being a little
surer about what I'm doing. I run WinXP Home with OE6 and have just
upgraded from IE6 to IE7. I have several different OE identities with VERY
large message stores, but I try to follow the advice given in this newsgroup
from time to time about limiting the size of folders (especially the default
folders), compacting offline etc etc.

I'm not now sure whether I created the first identity by creating a new one
or renaming the then Main Identity. Apart from the identities that I have
created, I now a new one called 'Autre Utilisateur' (apparently created by
the French ISP that I am currently using) and 2 others called 'Main
Identity'. I can switch to the first (it is empty, apart from the usual OE
welcome message), but I cannot switch to either of the other 2 because I
keep getting a message saying that 'The current identity could not be
changed because one of the applications was unable to switch. ...' I have
no trouble switching between the identities that I created and use
regularly.

So ... how can I safely and effectively delete the three identities that I
do not want?
--
Lindsay Graham
Canberra, Australia (temporarily in Chateau-du-Loir, France)
----------------------------------------------
Please reply via the newsgroup/mailing list, so that all may benefit from
the discussion.

Why risk it? Create a new Named Identity, then (1) compact all folders in
the old identity, (2) import messages from the old identity into the new
one, and then (3) delete all of the other identities (File Identities
Manage Identities).

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.

- Disable Background Compacting [N/A in SP2] and frequently perform a manual
compact of all OE folders while "working offline". More at
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm

- WinXP SP2 only: Do not attempt to close OE via Task Manager or shutdown
your machine if Automatic Compacting is taking place.

- Your anti-virus application's email scanning feature can also cause
corruption. Disable it. It provides no additional protection.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)



Lindsay Graham wrote:
I asked a question about Receiving messages on Startup about a month ago,
and Bruce Hagen referred me to the MS article 'How to Create and Use
Identities in Outlook Express'. Thanks, Bruce -- sorry for not getting
back
to you earlier. Since then, I've also looked at Tom Koch's InsideOE and
Steve Cochrane's OE site.

Bruce suggested that I may have a damaged identity, and I suspect that is
correct. But I'm reluctant to take drastic action without being a little
surer about what I'm doing. I run WinXP Home with OE6 and have just
upgraded from IE6 to IE7. I have several different OE identities with
VERY
large message stores, but I try to follow the advice given in this
newsgroup
from time to time about limiting the size of folders (especially the
default
folders), compacting offline etc etc.

I'm not now sure whether I created the first identity by creating a new
one
or renaming the then Main Identity. Apart from the identities that I have
created, I now a new one called 'Autre Utilisateur' (apparently created by
the French ISP that I am currently using) and 2 others called 'Main
Identity'. I can switch to the first (it is empty, apart from the usual
OE
welcome message), but I cannot switch to either of the other 2 because I
keep getting a message saying that 'The current identity could not be
changed because one of the applications was unable to switch. ...' I
have
no trouble switching between the identities that I created and use
regularly.

So ... how can I safely and effectively delete the three identities that I
do not want?