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"Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."



 
 
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  #31  
Old September 15th 18, 08:44 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Stan Brown
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Posts: 2,904
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

On Fri, 14 Sep 2018 21:05:27 +0100, Java Jive wrote:
On 14/09/2018 20:39, NY wrote:
I would say that Classic Shell (or an equivalent) is the one *essential*
package that is needed on any Win 8/10 PC to make it usable.


Well, one can do quite a lot by tedious step-by-step customisation,
which at least is free - what's the point of paying for an OS, and
then paying again to make it usable.


"... at least is free"?? So is classic Shell.

And installing and configuring it, in my opinion, is MUCH faster than
trying to configure the annoyances out of Win 8. (I don't have enough
direct experience with Win 10 to comment.)

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...
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  #32  
Old September 15th 18, 08:44 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
mick
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Posts: 280
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

On 15/09/2018 16:11:04, Java Jive wrote:
On 15/09/2018 14:47, Big Al wrote:

On 09/15/2018 09:17 AM, Java Jive wrote:

Actually Outlook *used* to be able to export account details to *.iaf
files, so you could export on one machine, copy the files to another, and
import there, but somewhere in between Outlook 2000 and 2010 the dickheads
at M$ decided that this, and those very convenient menus that we'd all
learnt to use, was far too convenient for their users, so when setting up
Office 2010, I had to reconfigure the accounts in Outlook 2010 from
scratch, which, as you say, was a convoluted time-wasting hassle.* I got
it all working, but to me it made the point again about the dangers of
having something as important as one's email history in an bespoke format
that few other programs can read, so that's why I
converted*it*all*to*T'bird,*and*now*use*that*as*my *email*client.


I've backed up the *.PST file for outlook 2007 on my wife's machine many
times before a reload and then just dropped it back and all is there, mail
wise.*** That file includes everything to get and send mail but IIRC it
lacks configuration of Outlook itself, so view, colors, etc need reset.**
Still, better than having to setup the POP info though.


Yes, AFAICR the evolution of the Outlook species between 2000 & 2010 was
roughly ...

2000: Kept all the contacts, calendar, mails, notes in a monolithic *.pst
file - I think it held everything *except* the account details, which were
held in the registry - hence the need to transfer them by exporting and
importing *.iaf files. If you had more than email account, they'd all be in
the one file.

2010: Everything, including the account details, is now in the *.pst files -
note the plural, if you have more than one email account, you now have more
than one *.pst file. There is nothing wrong with the new arrangement of
keeping the account details in *.pst files, but FFS why is it that 2010 can
import older *.pst files but not the corresponding *.iaf files? I could
import all my old emails from 2000, but not the corresponding account
details! Duh!

But, while I used Outlook 2000 for many years and 2010 for a while, I think
there are major problems with both versions ...

I really don't like the fact that all my emails are held in a single
monolithic file of a bespoke proprietary format and encryption. For one
thing, if it gets corrupted, it could prove very challenging to retrieve
anything useful from it. For another, if you want to clean out old mails,
you can't just delete them as individual files from your hard drive, but
leave them on your backup server in case of need, instead you have to backup
the entire file to a new name, and then delete the emails from the originally
named file, because otherwise when you next back up to the server, it'll
overwrite the version of the file with the old mails in it. Even now that
you've backed up the old version of the file with the old mails to a suitable
back up name, you've still got a devil of a job to find one particular old
mail which you now find that you need to refer to - is it in the current
file, last year's back up, just how many years' back up files are you going
to have to search to find it?

I'd rather mails were kept as individual files, so that if one gets
corrupted, only one email is lost, and in a format that is open source,
though obviously it still needs to be encrypted. That helps guard against
corruption, but you'd still need some method of searching a back-up directory
on a server from within your usual email client. AFAIK, no email client can
do this.


You don't have to have one large .pst file.

I archive my emails by year so I have 2010archive.pst, 2011archive.pst,
2012archive.pst etc., etc.
That way your current Outlook.pst file and your archive.pst never have
more than one years worth of info in them.

You just compact and back up your multiple archive files once the
ignore them on subsequent backups as they are unlikely to ever change.

To see all your archive pst files and be able to access the info in
them all you do is add those files under the data files tab in account
settings. They then show up in the Outlook folder hierarchy where they
can be searched normally providing that you have set to 'search all
items' in preferences.

I have been doing it this way for 17 years so thats 16 archived pst
files plus the current archive.pst and the Outlook.pst file. The
archive files vary between 120mb and 870mb, average size is about
450mb, Outlook opens quickly, runs smoothly and never crashes.

--
mick
  #33  
Old September 15th 18, 08:49 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Stan Brown
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Posts: 2,904
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

On Sat, 15 Sep 2018 08:52:56 -0400, Wolf K wrote:
Er, all email clients save account details, etc. They just do it
differently. In Tbird, it's all stored in a folder labeled "Profiles".
Which can store two or more different profiles, each with its own
accounts, etc. Profiles can be reused not only in different instances of
TB, and on different PCs, they can be reused on TB running on different
operating systems.


I can confirm that, if you consider Win 7 and Win 8 as different
operating systems. I regularly copy my profile from my big laptop to
my small one, and everything works the same on both.

Now, if there were just some way to tell Thunderbird that I want to
leave all my online mail on line, and NOT have it copied to my PC.
You'd think that would be simple, but if there's any way at all I've
failed to discover it.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...
  #34  
Old September 15th 18, 10:06 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Java Jive
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Posts: 391
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to somethingafter all."

On 15/09/2018 20:44, mick wrote:

To see all your archive pst files and be able to access the info in them
all you do is add those files under the data files tab in account
settings.* They then show up in the Outlook folder hierarchy where they
can be searched normally providing that you have set to 'search all
items' in preferences.


I think I can remember why I never did this.

Every time Outlook, at least 2000 and I think 2010's the same, opens a
*.pst file, it changes the date on it, even if the contents of the file
do not change. Excel 2000 does this as well. This means that you only
have to open a file to examine its contents, change nothing, but that
file will now have a new timestamp, and when you run your incremental
back up software, the otherwise-unchanged file will get backed up, and
it doesn't matter then whether your 17 years' worth of Outlook data are
in one monolithic file or spread over 17 files, the amount of data to be
backed up last thing before you retire to bed is roughly the same, and
relatively large.

I don't think I knew that you could add archive files to be included in
searches though, probably because I delete off the PC and leave them
only on the server, so that might prove useful knowleadge, if not to me,
then to others, for which thanks.

But for myself, I'm trying to make myself independent of MS-based
systems, so I'm unlikely ever to go back to using Outlook for email.
The one thing I still have to open it for is that I made a lot of notes,
and although I've managed to export them into SQL format, I've not found
anything which lets me browse them in a tree-like structure the way
Outlook does.
  #35  
Old September 15th 18, 11:03 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Monty
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Posts: 598
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

On Sat, 15 Sep 2018 10:10:26 +0100, "NY" wrote:


Thunderbird seems good. It certainly handles quoting of email/newsgroup
messages when replying - it even re-wraps text, It would be nice to be able
to click on the "To" button and see the address book from which you can tick
all the recipients that you want.


The Thunderbird address book is accessible from the "Tools" menu.
  #36  
Old September 16th 18, 12:10 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
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Posts: 2,679
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| I really don't like the fact that all my emails are held in a single
| monolithic file of a bespoke proprietary format and encryption. For
| one thing, if it gets corrupted, it could prove very challenging to
| retrieve anything useful from it. For another, if you want to clean
|
| AFAIK, all - Windows, anyway - do that. (The degree of proprietariness -
| and encryption - varying.)

I have TBird and OE. Both store in a "flat file" with
minimal structure and no encryption.


It's still a single file though. Which makes me uneasy (though I'm
obviously accepting it since I have no choice).

(Though some
emails these days are actually sent with Base-64
encoding of the text. Email clients decode that so
it's not visible in general usage. It doesn't constitute
encryption. I don't know why they do it.


Because their coders are too thick to realise they don't need to. I
genuinely can't think of any other reason.

Usually
Base-64 is just used to transport binary files as text.)

[]
I haven't been saving large attachments in the database.

I rarely keep large attachments in emails. Fortunately Turnpike - like
Outlook (can't remember if OE, and don't know about Thunderbird) - has
the ability to remove attachments and leave the rest of the email alone.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Today you wonder if the media has become the opposition - it's become the
political classes against 24-hour media.
Jon Culshaw [voice impressionist], in RT 2015/4/11-17
  #37  
Old September 16th 18, 12:15 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
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Posts: 2,679
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

In message , Stan Brown
writes:
[]
Now, if there were just some way to tell Thunderbird that I want to
leave all my online mail on line, and NOT have it copied to my PC.
You'd think that would be simple, but if there's any way at all I've
failed to discover it.

Isn't that what IMAP is supposed to be about (or, at a stretch, POP with
it set to - depending on how the client puts it - to "leave email on
server" or "not delete mail from server)? Obviously, to actually look at
your emails, the client has to download them; whether it then
immediately discards them, is just a matter of semantics.

Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean: your reference to "my online
mail" makes me think that is probably the case, as I can't think what
other sort of mail there might be.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Today you wonder if the media has become the opposition - it's become the
political classes against 24-hour media.
Jon Culshaw [voice impressionist], in RT 2015/4/11-17
  #38  
Old September 16th 18, 12:22 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Bill in Co
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,927
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

I really don't like the fact that all my emails are held in a single
monolithic file of a bespoke proprietary format and encryption. For
one thing, if it gets corrupted, it could prove very challenging to
retrieve anything useful from it. For another, if you want to clean

AFAIK, all - Windows, anyway - do that. (The degree of proprietariness -
and encryption - varying.)


I have TBird and OE. Both store in a "flat file" with
minimal structure and no encryption.


It's still a single file though. Which makes me uneasy (though I'm
obviously accepting it since I have no choice).

(Though some
emails these days are actually sent with Base-64
encoding of the text. Email clients decode that so
it's not visible in general usage. It doesn't constitute
encryption. I don't know why they do it.


Because their coders are too thick to realise they don't need to. I
genuinely can't think of any other reason.

Usually
Base-64 is just used to transport binary files as text.)

[]
I haven't been saving large attachments in the database.

I rarely keep large attachments in emails. Fortunately Turnpike - like
Outlook (can't remember if OE, and don't know about Thunderbird) - has
the ability to remove attachments and leave the rest of the email alone.


But I think the idea of having emails stored as separate files has a major
downside, too. If you've got, let's say, 10,000 emails being stored as
separate files, it just seems like a major headache to keep track of these,
or to backup and/or restore, vs having them stored in one composite file.


  #39  
Old September 16th 18, 12:31 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

In message , Bill in Co
writes:
[]
But I think the idea of having emails stored as separate files has a major
downside, too. If you've got, let's say, 10,000 emails being stored as
separate files, it just seems like a major headache to keep track of these,
or to backup and/or restore, vs having them stored in one composite file.

Assuming they're stored in a structure similar to how most email clients
present them - i. e. in folders (directories) - I don't really see much
of a problem. You'd have to change the default sort order to be by date
rather than name (I do that in a lot of my folders anyway), but I don't
see that as a major difficulty.

It's academic anyway - AFAIK, no Windows email client gives the option.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Today you wonder if the media has become the opposition - it's become the
political classes against 24-hour media.
Jon Culshaw [voice impressionist], in RT 2015/4/11-17
  #40  
Old September 16th 18, 01:22 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Mayayana
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Posts: 6,438
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| It's academic anyway - AFAIK, no Windows email client gives the option.

It is an option if you really want it. Undbx does it for
OE. I wrote a very simple script to do it for TBird. It's
simple because a TBird file is just each email pasted
together with a distinctive text string. Since email is by
definition nothing other than plain text, it's simple to
parse. I don't know about Turnpike, but it may be similar.
You could check the file in Notepad.

The drawback, though, is that there isn't a good
way to search them or visually scan them. You can
use an Explorer-style search tool, like Windows
search or Agent Ransack, but a dedicated email search
tool can search by date, from, to, subject, body, etc.

That's why I made the MSI utility. I wanted to be able
to access years worth of email, easily navigate in it,
and easily back up the whole thing. I do that for
OE by backing up the DBX files, but that only covers
current email and it requires OE to look at it, which
can be tricky.


  #41  
Old September 16th 18, 05:19 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Bill in Co
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Posts: 1,927
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co
writes:
[]
But I think the idea of having emails stored as separate files has a
major downside, too. If you've got, let's say, 10,000 emails being
stored as separate files, it just seems like a major headache to keep
track of these, or to backup and/or restore, vs having them stored in
one composite file.

Assuming they're stored in a structure similar to how most email clients
present them - i. e. in folders (directories) - I don't really see much
of a problem. You'd have to change the default sort order to be by date
rather than name (I do that in a lot of my folders anyway), but I don't
see that as a major difficulty.

It's academic anyway - AFAIK, no Windows email client gives the option.


Do you mean each of the 10,000 files would be stored in separate folders?
Egads! I think that would be a nightmare to look at and keep track of. :-)
I think the OE structure is a good compromise.


  #42  
Old September 16th 18, 07:44 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
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Posts: 2,679
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| It's academic anyway - AFAIK, no Windows email client gives the option.

It is an option if you really want it. Undbx does it for
OE. I wrote a very simple script to do it for TBird. It's


Good to know - so even if not available as standard, there are add-ons.

simple because a TBird file is just each email pasted
together with a distinctive text string. Since email is by
definition nothing other than plain text, it's simple to
parse. I don't know about Turnpike, but it may be similar.
You could check the file in Notepad.


(Unfortunately, TP stores it with strong encryption, that can't be
turned off.)

The drawback, though, is that there isn't a good
way to search them or visually scan them. You can
use an Explorer-style search tool, like Windows
search or Agent Ransack, but a dedicated email search
tool can search by date, from, to, subject, body, etc.


Ah, so Undbx and your script are post-processors - you can't run them in
parallel with OE/TBird, as a transparent thing? (Fortunately Turnpike
does have a search facility - I'm not sure how efficient it is, but it
works well enough for me. I don't have a _huge_ email archive; old, but
not that many, and most attachments have been removed.)

That's why I made the MSI utility. I wanted to be able
to access years worth of email, easily navigate in it,
and easily back up the whole thing. I do that for
OE by backing up the DBX files, but that only covers
current email and it requires OE to look at it, which
can be tricky.

Do you use OE as your main email client, then?

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If you want to make people angry, lie to them. If you want to make them
absolutely livid, then tell 'em the truth.
  #43  
Old September 16th 18, 07:48 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co
writes:
[]
But I think the idea of having emails stored as separate files has a
major downside, too. If you've got, let's say, 10,000 emails being
stored as separate files, it just seems like a major headache to keep
track of these, or to backup and/or restore, vs having them stored in
one composite file.

Assuming they're stored in a structure similar to how most email clients
present them - i. e. in folders (directories) - I don't really see much
of a problem. You'd have to change the default sort order to be by date
rather than name (I do that in a lot of my folders anyway), but I don't
see that as a major difficulty.

It's academic anyway - AFAIK, no Windows email client gives the option.


Do you mean each of the 10,000 files would be stored in separate folders?
Egads! I think that would be a nightmare to look at and keep track of. :-)
I think the OE structure is a good compromise.

Not 10,000 folders! No, in the same folder structure as the "folder"
structure in the clients we do use. Yes, the OE structure - if that's a
single file for each of its "folders" - isn't a bad compromise. Still a
compromise though: I'm sure if the bullet had been bitten a while ago,
email client software would have got over the problems. (It's not going
to now, as major development in email clients has ceased.)

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

She's showing her age a little bit. I always say she doesn't have teething
troubles, she has denture troubles! - Timothy West (on their narrowboat!), RT
2014-March
  #44  
Old September 16th 18, 02:18 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Mayayana
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Posts: 6,438
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| (Unfortunately, TP stores it with strong encryption, that can't be
| turned off.)

According to this...

https://www.mailxaminer.com/blog/inv...client-emails/

....it uses Berkeley Mailbox format, or at least can
export in that format as a .mbox file. That's also
the format that TBird uses, or rather a variation
of it. (I wasn't aware of the name or of its being
a standard. I just had to figure out what the
pattern of storage was in TBird and it turns out
to be like BMF. It's not a very sensible format
because it allows for ambiguity, but I suppose
the Mozillians have a higher regard for tech
"historicity" than for efficiency. Most geeks do.
They're a surprisingly conservative bunch.)

At any rate, it's a simple format to parse. They
use an empty line followed by "From -", which is
then followed by 3 lines of superfluous officiality.
That pattern separates each email. I say it's
poorly designed because "From -" is not a unique
string, and empty lines are common in emails.
Emails generally use a GUID just to separate sections.
A GUID is a 32-byte number that's claimed to be
guaranteed unique. TBird or other programs could
easily just generate a GUID for delimiting messages,
but instead they use the outdated "From -" delimiter.

All of that's to say that you should be able to
get your email out without much trouble, but I'm
not aware of any program that will just export single
messages. I can drag them out onto the desktop
one at a time, as can also be done with TBird. But
I can't save all of them. Out of curiosity I tried the
Export function in OE and it told me that it would only
export to Outlook or MS Exchange. Parochial monopoly
strikes again.

| Ah, so Undbx and your script are post-processors - you can't run them in
| parallel with OE/TBird, as a transparent thing? (Fortunately Turnpike
| does have a search facility - I'm not sure how efficient it is, but it
| works well enough for me. I don't have a _huge_ email archive; old, but
| not that many, and most attachments have been removed.)

OE has good search, but undbx can turn a DBX storage
file into single .eml files. Likewise with my script for TBird,
which is extremely simple.
They both require the path of the storage file and then
dissect it.
I've never done any of this through the OE UI. I just back
up the DBX files for basic backup and use my utility for
"archive" backup.

| Do you use OE as your main email client, then?

You betcha. I've used OE6 for many years. I'm
ambivalent these days because its encryption
methods are no longer usable. It can't handle above
TLS 1.0, if I remember correctly. And that's been
hacked. While it's still probably very useful, many
companies won't support it. I'd have to move to
TBird to get encryption.

But the value of encryption is debatable. I don't
plan bank heists via email. And I'm already hesitant
to talk about anything that's even just somewhat
personal with the myriad sheep who use gmail. What
good is encryption if the company on the other end
claims the right to read and co-own my email, and
no one is stopping them?
Encryption only works for transport. And
Google cooperates with the NSA. So who else is
going to listen in on my tedious philosophizing?

If I wrote things like credit card numbers then
I'd be concerned, but I don't use computers for
that kind of thing -- credit card transactions or
banking.

OE also has limited security because of its
age. But that doesn't really apply to me. I don't
enable script or HTML email. And with anything
that looks fishy I look at the source code first.
Security is for people who open spam as HTML
and can't be bothered checking URLs before
clicking them.
In all other things I find OE very well designed
and fully functional.

This topic was discussed recently. There are a
number of aspects of TBird that I find sloppy or
poorly designed. Starting with the idiotic way
it imports OE email to a second-class sub-tree.
TBird is my first choice if I ever have to switch
over but so far I don't need to.


  #45  
Old September 16th 18, 02:43 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Stan Brown
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,904
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

On Sat, 15 Sep 2018 22:06:24 +0100, Java Jive wrote:
Every time Outlook, at least 2000 and I think 2010's the same, opens a
*.pst file, it changes the date on it, even if the contents of the file
do not change. Excel 2000 does this as well.


And Access 2010 too -- I don't know about other versions of Access.

It's most annoying, and needless. I've been reduced to copying a
database before opening it for viewing, then deleting the copy, to
avoid triggering a spurious backup.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...
 




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