Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with windows and email

How do I fix the time on my emails?

lockedroomguy — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:27:51 -0800

Emails I send are time stamped one hour in the future. Emails I receive are time stamped one hour in the past. In mid-March, the emails I receive started getting time stamped 1 hour early. So if someone sends me an email at 10:00 AM, it appears in my inbox with a time of 9:00 AM. I have rebooted many times since then.

But if I send an email at 10:00 AM, it appears in the receiver's inbox stamped 11:00 AM.

If I send myself an email at 10:00 AM it appears in my inbox stamped 11:00 AM.

When I look at my outbox all time stamps are correct.

I'm running Windows XP SP2 on a Lenovo T60. I may not be up to date with all Windows patches--specifically my Windows might not know about last year's change to DST dates. We do not use Outlook or an Exchange server. My email client is Thunderbird 2.0. My Windows time zone is set to Eastern Time Zone (US and Canada) with the DST option checked.

No other users in our network have this issue, and we all use the same mail servers. Any email that someone else sends to me has the correct time.

If this is clearly a Windows DST patch issue, then I can go that route. But since the inbound are off by an hour in one direction, and the outbound are in the opposite direction, I'm suspecting it might be something else.

Any ideas what that might be?

How to read .msg files on a Mac?

Coherence Panda — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:56:33 -0800

I've got a bunch of (important) single .msg files that I want to read on my Mac (10.5.x). Any advice? Any tool that converts entire mailboxes doesn't seem to apply, and the only dedicated .msg reader I could find is broken. Renaming as .txt doesn't work either. Nor does Emailalchemy or NeoOffice. Help!

Is Outlook the Best Option?

Bunglegirl — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:13:50 -0800

What email program should my older mother use on her new Windows machine? My 65 year-old mother's computer died and her new one arrived a few minutes ago. It's running Windows XP Pro, I believe. She uses it to look at her money on Quicken, play casino video games off of CDs and check email.

She was using some very old version of Outlook before. It always had problems that she had trouble with like non-clickable links and not loading images or opening images. It's interface was cluttered with all kinds of functions she doesn't need. Her email consists of maybe 10 messages a day, mostly forwards from her friends which often include images. She doesn't use a RSS reader, calendars or any Office programs. She's gotten pretty good on the computer for someone who only started a few years ago (she's not hunting and pecking anymore) but I think a simpler interface will help her.

I'm a Mac person and, although I am often forced to help her on Windows, I don't really know what I'm doing. What email program should I tell her to use? I am in charge of setting it up so whatever I tell her is "email" she will use. I simply switched her default browser to Firefox and she didn't care. I'm thinking of Thunderbird (she doesn't like webmail or web applications) but have no experience with it. What email program should I install for her or will whatever comes with it be fine and un-complicated?

Bonus question: She insists on having Norton and Spysweeper on there. I tried to get her to use something else less bloated/horrible and she refused. Those programs crippled her last computer (but it was super old and pieced together by my dad). She just paid for new subscriptions so are there any steps to make it work well but not kill this new machine? I've read a lot about it but could stand to do some more research for specific steps.

Why is the Archive command missing from Outlook's File menu?

VeniceGlass — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 04:50:38 -0800

Why is the Archive command missing from Outlook's File menu? It used to be there - I've used it! There are no group policies at my company affecting it (I've verified with IT).

Anyone with experiance in making MS Exchange work with SpamAssassin without having a Linux Box on hand?

TrueVox — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:39:07 -0800

I work at a small company with an Exchange server. We need OK spam protection. In an effort to move them to a more FOSS workcycle, I'm advocating SpamAssassin. Basically, I need it to work in our Windows Environment. We currently run NO Linux boxes, and while we're not at all against virtualization (in fact I'm pushing for us to get a copy of VMWare Workstation for our beefy new server), it needs to be simple. I tried downloading the Embeded version of Damn Small Linux, but it is a pain to get it so it can save (as near as I can tell), so that's a no go. Any other ideas? I'd run it on Windows but the walk through confuses me (even the easy one). Again, I'm not against Linux, but it has to be easy (preferably drop in). Has anyone used Spam Vigilante? Is it simple (and by simple, I mean assume I'm an idiot :D)? Oh, and does it work with Exchange (I don't see it mentioned but maybe I'm blind)?

Ok, thanks a lot in advance! I really appricate your feedback!

Move a mailbox out of Earthlink Total Access?

spitbull — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 07:04:08 -0800

(Geekfilter) Can I convert Earthlink TotalAccess (WinXP PC) Email (.dat or .csv) mailboxes to Apple Mail (.mbox) mailboxes on a Mac? (AKA: How can Earthlink be this stupid?) OK, so here's the situation, and I'm sorry it's a bit detailed, but the one person who knows the answer to this will need all the facts:

1) Person I am helping has an old Windows PC running XP. She uses Earthlink, and had their "TotalAccess" suite installed (nightmarish).

2) She's moving to a new iMac (10.4). She will continue to use Earthlink (also her DSL provider). So we installed the Mac version of TA on her iMac, and it uses Apple's Mail.app as its default email application. Thank Jobs. (And this question would still apply even if we didn't use Mac TotalAccess, but just wanted to use Mail.app as a standalone app.)

3) Oh shit. The PC version of TA uses a proprietary email client that is capable of exporting its mailboxes in two formats: .csv or .dat (which Google tells me is a "proprietary" earthlink email mailbox format, and may or not be the same thing as the contacts .dat format in Outlook/OExpress -- and I was able to move her addressbook into the Apple Address Book without a problem). The onscreen help says to use the .dat export if you plan to reimport into another version of TA, and .csv to import into other mail applications.

4) Apple Mail.app cannot import .csv mailbox files into its native .mbox format, as far as I can tell. Nor can I find an OS X (or PC) email application that does. Nor can I find a standalone format conversion utility that does, for which I would be willing to pay a modest fee.

5) I want to be able, possibly via an intermediary mail application, possibly via a standalone conversion app, to convert either the .dat or the .csv mailboxes (all in one file in either case) into a standard .mbox file. I am stymied.

Or is there another workaround short of resending (to herself) all the email from the original TA mailboxes on the old PC?

Also, I know the CSV file is not corrupted. I can open it and see everything in Excel.

Keeping my laptops in sync

chairish — Tue, 22 May 2007 02:11:24 -0800

I need some ideas to keep my email, calendar and some key files on my laptops in sync. I work as a trainer / consultant in more than a dozen workplaces. Presently I'm using Google Apps for my email and calendaring and syncing back to Outlook 2007 on my (main) Vista laptop.

30% of the time I work in Mac workplaces so I want to be able to sync the same things on this system.

I tried putting it all into Google Apps but a couple of my work places block GMail and associated domains. I tried using my cellphone as a modem ... but several of these workplaces are in areas where I can only achieve dial-up speed on my modem. One place is so rural that the cellphone only works on 'good days' This is just a bit too tricky. Added to that, Google doesn't do IMAP.

I'd love some ideas.

Can't open newer PST files

pax digita — Wed, 02 May 2007 11:36:15 -0800

I have .PST files created via Outlook (Win) 2003 that I need to look into. However, I have Outlook (Win) 2000 on this computer, and it can't read a newer version (thanks, Redmond). Is there some other way to open these?

Teach my PC some PDA-cleverness...

blue_wardrobe — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 13:52:26 -0800

How does my Windows Mobile PDA communicate with our office Exchange Server successfully without using a VPN, when I have to use a VPN with Microsoft Outlook to get at it? (And then are there any PC-based programs that can use the same technique as the PDA?)

What free SMTP service could I use to send emails using Yahoo and Thunderbird

sk381 — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:02:00 -0800

I would like to use the new release of Thunderbird (2.0) with my Yahoo account and am looking for a free SMTP service. I know Gmail lets you use its servers but apparently changes the 'From' field of the message to username@gmail.com for all messages. Is there any other service that I can use, apart from my ISP's (I shuffle between work, school and home). Also, I was looking at a few free STMP server programs like Free SMTP Server and PostCast Server. Are they any good? My understanding is that a lot of times, email doesn't end up going through to the receiver if one uses such 'free' programs, due to spam filters at the receiver's end.

Blank message screen on WM5 Smartphone

sprocket87 — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 07:05:46 -0800

Help! Opening any text messages or emails displays a blank white screen on my Cingular 2125 (HTC Faraday) Windows Mobile 5 smartphone. I'm still receiving incoming SMS (text) and email messages. It's still notifying me of new messages, and when I open the inbox (SMS or email, doesn't matter), I see the list of new messages and their first line of text. When I click to open them, though, I just get a blank screen!

The screen is totally white except for the menu bar at the bottom and the header at the top ("Text Messages", battery indicator, signal strength indicator). At the bottom, "Reply" and "Menu" show up, and both buttons work. If I press "Menu" it gives me the normal menu options for a message (Delete, Reply, etc). If I press "Reply", the screen stays white but the menu bar changes to indicate that I should be looking at the Compose window ("Reply" at the bottom changes to "Send", "Menu" has different options). However the screen area is still completely white with no text, lines, etc for me to compose in.

So yeah, incoming messaging works, but when I open any message it's just a blank white screen. I don't have any weird character packs/CE-Star thing going on. I can't trace it back to starting after any specific app I've installed either; it appears to have just started at random this week.

Please help!! Thanks :)

Outlook Taskbar Icon Go Bye Bye?

antifuse — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 07:09:45 -0800

Where has my Outlook New Mail notification on the taskbar gone? Ok - I'm using Outlook 2003 SP2 on my XP machine here at work. It *used* to be the case that whenever a new mail message arrived, a little envelope icon would show up in my taskbar. This was great, because if I left my desk for 20 minutes and a new mail arrived, I wouldn't have to switch to Outlook to see if I had any new mail. However, at some point in the last 6 months or so, this icon just stopped appearing! I still get the "New Mail Desktop Notification" that pops up a little message summary, but that fades and disappears after a couple seconds (and sometimes just doesn't show up at all). I've scoured the settings, and can't seem to find what causes the little icon to show up in the taskbar! Anybody have any ideas?

Network tech support brain-twister

frenetic — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 08:02:38 -0800

Riddle me this: there are two Windows XP computers (desktop and laptop) on the same Internet connection, behind the same router, connecting wirelessly to it. The laptop often (but not every time) takes a really long time (30 seconds+) to send email and connect to certain websites. The desktop never has this problem. What's going on? Here are a few things I've checked:

- Wireless signal strength is fine
- When the laptop is taking a long time connecting to sites others work fine at the same time
- Scanned for spyware/viruses with MS Anti-Spyware and Spybot Search & Destroy (clean)
- Has the web problem in three different web browsers (IE6, Netscape 7, Firefox 1.5)
- Has the email problem in both Netscape mail and Outlook Express
- Windows firewall is disabled
- Disabled Javascript/Java/Cookies in Firefox
- Disabled any virus checkers/resident anti-spyware
- Cleared everything out of the tray
- Checked network setup, it's identical to the desktop

One of the sites that's reliably slow (though again, not every time) on the laptop but not on the desktop is tremblant.ca.

All I can think of at this point is that something's been fundamentally hosed and the laptop needs a full XP reinstall. But I'd love to know what the heck's going on if anyone knows.

How to get groups out of Outlook Express on Windows?

sfz — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 16:22:37 -0800

OK - I just bought an iMac to replace our dying Windows machine at home. I've successfully moved over almost everything - email (thanks to emailchemy), bookmarks, contacts, calendar items, documents. But I'm stuck on one thing - how can I reproduce the groups of contacts from our old windows outlook express address in the OS X address book? I would rather not have to recreate them one address at a time if I can avoid it. Thanks!

Simple free Windows POP email server?

derbs — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 08:44:48 -0800

I need a simple POP/SMTP mail server for Windows 2003, free if possible! I need some more features that the built in mail stuff in windows doesn't have. I really want to keep the mail users separate from the actual Windows users, and i also want to be able to allow smtp relay for a specified time for people who have logged in to their POP account.

Is there anything out there that does all this and is free...? If you have paid for one, is it worth the money?

Thanks!

Help me fix my boss's email forwarding problem!

jacobsee — Fri, 28 Jan 2005 11:08:08 -0800

Email forwarding problem within the domain: Trying to fix my boss's email account. He checks his email using Netscape 7.2 on a Win98 PC. (We can't convince him to upgrade). He can send mail and reply to mail fine. He can forward mail fine, except when it is to one of use within the same domain name. It appears to send successfully but never shows up. I've tried looking through the email headers but nothing sticks out and I don't relaly know what to look for. Was wondering if this situation rings a bell for anyone?

What's a lightweight, simple email server I can install on my XP box?

signal — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 05:33:29 -0800

What's a lightweight, simple email server I can install on my XP box? It will only serve like 2 addresses. IMAP and web access is a plus. Running as a service would also be nice.

Simple Pop Email client recommendation.

Mitheral — Mon, 04 Oct 2004 14:19:00 -0800

Simple Pop Email client recommendation. [MI] Pegusus Mail often has my father completely completely confused and trying to support this over the phone is driving me batty. An interface like gmail/hotmail in a pop/imap client would be ideal. It needs to handle attachments in a simple consistant manner. Inbound filtering a bonus but not required. This is on WinXP. Outlook (Express) not an option nor is Mac/Linux. I'd also like to stay away from a multiuse application like Netscape.

Outlook 2000 Error No. 0x800ccc0e -- No Profiles Fetching or Sending Mail

stupidsexyFlanders — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 19:14:23 -0800

Outlook 2000 (WinXP) problem: Suddenly, none of my mail profiles will fetch or send mail. (mi) None of the profiles has changed in any way. The servers still work as I can send mail to the servers, and pick the mail up, from other mail clients. The error I get is 0x800ccc0e ("unable to connect to the server"). Googling is unhelpful, as the seem to all assume the problem is the server is down. Mine isn't.

WinXP Pro Email Client question

romakimmy — Sat, 24 Apr 2004 07:34:43 -0800

Which WinXP Pro Email Client will play nice with close to 800 megs of emails? [more inside] I realise email clients have been previously discussed here and elsewhere. But I'm finding no info through Google-fu on the most robust email clients for handling this obscene amount of mail.

My collegue has around 800 megs of emails, dating from around 2000, none of which are deletable due to the nature of the business. Up until now he has always used (don't gag) Outlook Express.

Today we are discovering that Outlook Express doesn't like this large amount of data and the "Find" function subsequently refuses to work, no matter how few emails it has to search through. Various attempts to patch, upgrade, roll back, refresh installation etc. did sweet fuck all. (I haven't yet futzed about with uninstalling OE, though, as it looks to be a huge pain in the ass, to be saved as a desparate measure)

Installing Outlook 2000 seemed like our salvation until it too froze in protest (subsequent skimming of Google results enlightened me to the fact that Outlook is vaguely connected to OE?)

So it's back to square one. Ideally we would archive a large portion of emails, which I know Outlook does, but since it's not playing nice at the moment...Thoughts?

Can mail be exported from Apple's email on OSX to a Windows XP box running Microsoft Outlook?

Macboy — Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:30:06 -0800

Can mail be exported from Apple's email on OSX to a Windows XP box running Microsoft Outlook?

XP won't let me type in Thai.

Pericles — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 08:57:14 -0800

Internationalising email in WinXP. My wife can read emails sent to her in Thai script using Outlook on our Win XP machine, but I can't work out how to configure the machine so that she can type in Thai (using out Thai/ English keyboard) in a non-html email. Outlook help mentions configuring using Microsoft Office Tools from the program manager - but that requires using the XP discs, which we don't have as it was preinstalled by the PC manufacturer. Anyone got any ideas? I don't want to change the language of the whole O/S/ (there's a download from microsoft.com to do that) as I don't read Thai. We're by no means married to Outlook; Moz, Opera etc would be fine. We have Thai fonts.

Help me find an email client for Windows

nthdegx — Sat, 03 Jan 2004 09:01:51 -0800

I can't settle on an email client for Windows. What I really want is a program with a nice interface, that let's me compose messages in plain text by default, convert incoming mail to plain text, and check spelling. I'm open to any ideas and suggestions. I've no particular aversion to Outlook Express, but the spell-check button is greyed-out. Maybe it needs an MS Office installation, which I don't have.