Cannot get rid of reminders in lockscreen

Windows 10 Home x64 build 1803

I do not want any notifications on my lockscreen. This violates my
privacy by exposing my e-mails and calendar events to anyone that
wanders by my computer to look at the lockscreen. Mail and Calendar are
showing their notifications (reminders) on my lockscreen.

I'm not talking about the popup or toaster notifications on the bottom
right-side of the lockscreen although I also do NOT want those, either.
I'm talking about the in-screen notifications (aka reminders) about my
e-mails and scheduled events from the Mail and Calendar apps that appear
in the lockscreen at the bottom left. I don't want toaster popups about
my e-mails and calendar events. I don't want them as reminders within
the lockscreen image itself, either.

I have gone to "Settings - Personalization - Lock screen" and removed
all apps that were listed under "Choose apps to show quick status".
There is no Remove or Delete option. You click on the app in the list
and scroll to the top of the app list to select "None". I have gone to
"Settings - System - Notifications & actions" and deselected the "Show
notifications on lock screen" option. I also have "Show reminders and
incoming VOIP calls on the lock screen" disabled. I have logged off and
back on, in case those options are effected only on login. Nope, I
still get the reminders at the bottom left-side of the lockscreen under
the clock and datestamp lines.

VanguardLH wrote:
Windows 10 Home x64 build 1803

I do not want any notifications on my lockscreen. This violates my
privacy by exposing my e-mails and calendar events to anyone that
wanders by my computer to look at the lockscreen. Mail and Calendar are
showing their notifications (reminders) on my lockscreen.

I'm not talking about the popup or toaster notifications on the bottom
right-side of the lockscreen although I also do NOT want those, either.
I'm talking about the in-screen notifications (aka reminders) about my
e-mails and scheduled events from the Mail and Calendar apps that appear
in the lockscreen at the bottom left. I don't want toaster popups about
my e-mails and calendar events. I don't want them as reminders within
the lockscreen image itself, either.

I have gone to "Settings - Personalization - Lock screen" and removed
all apps that were listed under "Choose apps to show quick status".
There is no Remove or Delete option. You click on the app in the list
and scroll to the top of the app list to select "None". I have gone to
"Settings - System - Notifications & actions" and deselected the "Show
notifications on lock screen" option. I also have "Show reminders and
incoming VOIP calls on the lock screen" disabled. I have logged off and
back on, in case those options are effected only on login. Nope, I
still get the reminders at the bottom left-side of the lockscreen under
the clock and datestamp lines.

One thing I notice, is my Mail App won't go to Suspend state,
and just exits. I suspect this may affect my lock screen
not having any Quick Status on the left.

I couldn't easily control the Windows version for this, as I
took a VM and did a V to P and put it on the test machine
on a disk drive and activated it. My VM has its own internal mail server
set up, for testing MAIL. And so far, I can't get that
Quick Status to show up, and the Mail App (begins with HXOutlook
or HXTsr), they're not likely to be running. If they
would enter Suspend state, like some of the other built-in
rubbish, maybe I would eventually get Quick Status to show up.
Like you seem to be getting.

A couple years ago, one of the complicating factors, seemed
to be different account types caused different symptoms. I
doubt my POP3 setup is all that good of a stimulus. Whereas
if I'd used a Gmail account, I might have had more luck.

You can try disabling the "background" setting on the Mail
App in the Settings GUI and see if that stops it. But that's
a pretty clumsy way to stop it. You can also try changing
the Lock Screen from Spotlight to one of the other options,
but again, this is relying on the flakiness of the design,
and isn't using a proper control as such. The claim seems to
be that the Quick Status doesn't work on all three lock
screen background options.

Paul

Paul wrote:

One thing I notice, is my Mail App won't go to Suspend state,
and just exits. I suspect this may affect my lock screen
not having any Quick Status on the left.

I couldn't easily control the Windows version for this, as I
took a VM and did a V to P and put it on the test machine
on a disk drive and activated it. My VM has its own internal mail server
set up, for testing MAIL. And so far, I can't get that
Quick Status to show up, and the Mail App (begins with HXOutlook
or HXTsr), they're not likely to be running. If they
would enter Suspend state, like some of the other built-in
rubbish, maybe I would eventually get Quick Status to show up.
Like you seem to be getting.

When the Mail or Calendar app are loaded and visible, I see the
HxOutlook and HxCalendar processes show up. When I exit (unload) their
GUI, those processes disappear. They don't remain loaded in suspended
mode.

I just did a test where I sent a test e-mail using the Gmail webmail
client to my Hotmail account. The Mail app was not visible and its
HxOutlook process was not loaded. Yet I got the toast (popup)
notification for Mail telling me there was a new incoming e-mail.

The HxOutlook process didn't exist (because I had exited the GUI for the
Mail app). Yet the Mail app issued a toast notification for the new
e-mail.

In Task Manager, under the Details tab, I have just a few processes in
suspend mode, which a

SkypeApp.exe
SkypeBackgroundHost.exe
LockApp.exe
MicrosoftPhotos.exe
RemindersServer.exe
SearchUI.exe
ShellExperienceHost.exe
WindowsInternal.ComposableShell.Experiences.TextIn put.InputApp.exe
YourPhone.exe

I pondered if the RemindersServer process had something to do with the
reminders showing up on the lockscreen. It is the program for
"Reminders WinRT OOP Server". WinRT aka Windows RT aka Windows Runtime
is the new programming paradigm for UWP apps, like Mail and Calendar.
All I've found out, so far, about this process is it is related to
Cortana to collect the user's data, like collect info about the user for
when they set timers or reminders for events. All my calendar events
have reminders. I want to be reminded (but not on the lockscreen) about
an appointment or event. I'm not using Calendar as a journal or diary.
Reminders WinRT OOP Server" or substrings thereof are not listed in the
services.msc app. I ran "sc.exe /query \temp\servlist.txt" and used
Notepad to search the output but no matches on "reminders" or "oop". In
Task Manager, I right-clicked on the RemindersServer.exe process and
selected "Go to services". All that did was take me to the Services
tab, but no service was selected, so that didn't identify which service
by a name was for that process. I searched on "remindersserv" in the
registry. No hits. I tried using SysInternals' Process Explorer and
searching on "reminderserv" but it found nothing. Found the process,
looked at its Properties which show the path to the process is:

C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw 5n1h2txyewy\RemindersServer.exe
(had to use PE's Explorer to open File Explorer to the file since PE
won't let me copy [and then paste] from its Properties dialog)

Yep, something to do with Cortana, and PE showed the process name was
"Reminders WinRT OOP Server". Still didn't tell me how it is getting
loaded. Used SysInternals' AutoRuns and search on "remindersserv". It
found nothing, so it is not a typical startup program. Probably has
Cortana load it, so I can't tell if, by its process name, if it really
has anything to do with the quick access reminders and popup toasts on
the lockscreen, but I recall that Cortana is involved with the
lockscreen.

Under the Processes tab, I didn't see any process grouped under
"Background processes" that were overtly for the Mail app.

Under the "Windows processes" group, I found one that I didn't know what
it was: Windows Push Notifications (a User and a System version). I
looked it up and found:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window...cation_Service

I suspect Microsoft is using that along with the Mail and Calendar apps
to push notifications (popups or toast in the Action Center). That's
just a guess based on the service name and the wikipedia article.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...-wns--overview

I'm sure Microsoft didn't altuistically develop this only for the use of
3rd party developers. They likely use it themself, too.

Back in Outlook 2016, and earlier, that program could use push
notifications for IMAP. It could use push notifications via Exchange
ActiveSync, like for Hotmail/Live/Outlook.com accounts (instead of
relying on a poll interval and instead show a new e-mail as soon as it
arrived in the server-side Inbox). WNS looks like something Microsoft
could use to push notifications from the server to the UWP app, like
Mail or Calendar.

Despite how Microsoft is pushing the notifications to the UWP apps or
how the apps might be hiding under some other process to get updates, I
cannot find any more settings to disable to get rid of "quick access"
reminders and toast popups in the lockscreen. If it's a bug, maybe I
have to kill Cortana to get rid of it adding reminders and popups on the
lockscreen.

You can try disabling the "background" setting on the Mail
App in the Settings GUI and see if that stops it.

But that means I would have to occasionally remember to load the Mail
app to do a manual poll of my accounts which means I won't get notified
as new e-mails come in. That's what I see of users of the webmail
clients: they have to remember to visit their e-mail provider's web site
to go check what new e-mails they receive sometime before, not what they
got now (and, no, I'm not adding a web app to the web browser because
unlike webcentrified users, I don't leave my web browser running all the
time, so such a web app in the web browser wouldn't be effective).

When NOT lockscreened, I do want the popups and toasts (in Action
Center) telling me of new e-mails and calendar events. When I am
lockscreened, no, I don't want those appearing there which anyone that
comes along can see my private information. They won't see the body of
the e-mails but the Subject is displayed and that by itself might reveal
something I don't want someone else to see, like "Surprise birthday for
your wife is at 6PM tomorrow".

I might have to rip out the Mail and Calendar (and People, too) out of
Windows and go back to using MS Office 365 since it isn't yet a UWP app.
Before that, I might see how much of Cortana I can rip out without
losing the search function (no, not everywhere, but just on my computer,
attached drives, etc). I'll probably wait until whenever Microsoft gets
around to foisting the 1903 build on me that is supposed to separate
Cortana from Search by showing a box for Search and a separate Cortana
button in the taskbar. Seems Cortana refuses to shut up and not divulge
my personal information in the lockscreen despite all the settings to
hide that info there.

VanguardLH wrote:
Paul wrote:

One thing I notice, is my Mail App won't go to Suspend state,
and just exits. I suspect this may affect my lock screen
not having any Quick Status on the left.

I couldn't easily control the Windows version for this, as I
took a VM and did a V to P and put it on the test machine
on a disk drive and activated it. My VM has its own internal mail server
set up, for testing MAIL. And so far, I can't get that
Quick Status to show up, and the Mail App (begins with HXOutlook
or HXTsr), they're not likely to be running. If they
would enter Suspend state, like some of the other built-in
rubbish, maybe I would eventually get Quick Status to show up.
Like you seem to be getting.

When the Mail or Calendar app are loaded and visible, I see the
HxOutlook and HxCalendar processes show up. When I exit (unload) their
GUI, those processes disappear. They don't remain loaded in suspended
mode.

I just did a test where I sent a test e-mail using the Gmail webmail
client to my Hotmail account. The Mail app was not visible and its
HxOutlook process was not loaded. Yet I got the toast (popup)
notification for Mail telling me there was a new incoming e-mail.

The HxOutlook process didn't exist (because I had exited the GUI for the
Mail app). Yet the Mail app issued a toast notification for the new
e-mail.

In Task Manager, under the Details tab, I have just a few processes in
suspend mode, which a

SkypeApp.exe
SkypeBackgroundHost.exe
LockApp.exe
MicrosoftPhotos.exe
RemindersServer.exe
SearchUI.exe
ShellExperienceHost.exe
WindowsInternal.ComposableShell.Experiences.TextIn put.InputApp.exe
YourPhone.exe

I pondered if the RemindersServer process had something to do with the
reminders showing up on the lockscreen. It is the program for
"Reminders WinRT OOP Server". WinRT aka Windows RT aka Windows Runtime
is the new programming paradigm for UWP apps, like Mail and Calendar.
All I've found out, so far, about this process is it is related to
Cortana to collect the user's data, like collect info about the user for
when they set timers or reminders for events. All my calendar events
have reminders. I want to be reminded (but not on the lockscreen) about
an appointment or event. I'm not using Calendar as a journal or diary.
Reminders WinRT OOP Server" or substrings thereof are not listed in the
services.msc app. I ran "sc.exe /query \temp\servlist.txt" and used
Notepad to search the output but no matches on "reminders" or "oop". In
Task Manager, I right-clicked on the RemindersServer.exe process and
selected "Go to services". All that did was take me to the Services
tab, but no service was selected, so that didn't identify which service
by a name was for that process. I searched on "remindersserv" in the
registry. No hits. I tried using SysInternals' Process Explorer and
searching on "reminderserv" but it found nothing. Found the process,
looked at its Properties which show the path to the process is:

C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw 5n1h2txyewy\RemindersServer.exe
(had to use PE's Explorer to open File Explorer to the file since PE
won't let me copy [and then paste] from its Properties dialog)

Yep, something to do with Cortana, and PE showed the process name was
"Reminders WinRT OOP Server". Still didn't tell me how it is getting
loaded. Used SysInternals' AutoRuns and search on "remindersserv". It
found nothing, so it is not a typical startup program. Probably has
Cortana load it, so I can't tell if, by its process name, if it really
has anything to do with the quick access reminders and popup toasts on
the lockscreen, but I recall that Cortana is involved with the
lockscreen.

Under the Processes tab, I didn't see any process grouped under
"Background processes" that were overtly for the Mail app.

Under the "Windows processes" group, I found one that I didn't know what
it was: Windows Push Notifications (a User and a System version). I
looked it up and found:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window...cation_Service

I suspect Microsoft is using that along with the Mail and Calendar apps
to push notifications (popups or toast in the Action Center). That's
just a guess based on the service name and the wikipedia article.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...-wns--overview

I'm sure Microsoft didn't altuistically develop this only for the use of
3rd party developers. They likely use it themself, too.

Back in Outlook 2016, and earlier, that program could use push
notifications for IMAP. It could use push notifications via Exchange
ActiveSync, like for Hotmail/Live/Outlook.com accounts (instead of
relying on a poll interval and instead show a new e-mail as soon as it
arrived in the server-side Inbox). WNS looks like something Microsoft
could use to push notifications from the server to the UWP app, like
Mail or Calendar.

Despite how Microsoft is pushing the notifications to the UWP apps or
how the apps might be hiding under some other process to get updates, I
cannot find any more settings to disable to get rid of "quick access"
reminders and toast popups in the lockscreen. If it's a bug, maybe I
have to kill Cortana to get rid of it adding reminders and popups on the
lockscreen.

You can try disabling the "background" setting on the Mail
App in the Settings GUI and see if that stops it.

But that means I would have to occasionally remember to load the Mail
app to do a manual poll of my accounts which means I won't get notified
as new e-mails come in. That's what I see of users of the webmail
clients: they have to remember to visit their e-mail provider's web site
to go check what new e-mails they receive sometime before, not what they
got now (and, no, I'm not adding a web app to the web browser because
unlike webcentrified users, I don't leave my web browser running all the
time, so such a web app in the web browser wouldn't be effective).

When NOT lockscreened, I do want the popups and toasts (in Action
Center) telling me of new e-mails and calendar events. When I am
lockscreened, no, I don't want those appearing there which anyone that
comes along can see my private information. They won't see the body of
the e-mails but the Subject is displayed and that by itself might reveal
something I don't want someone else to see, like "Surprise birthday for
your wife is at 6PM tomorrow".

I might have to rip out the Mail and Calendar (and People, too) out of
Windows and go back to using MS Office 365 since it isn't yet a UWP app.
Before that, I might see how much of Cortana I can rip out without
losing the search function (no, not everywhere, but just on my computer,
attached drives, etc). I'll probably wait until whenever Microsoft gets
around to foisting the 1903 build on me that is supposed to separate
Cortana from Search by showing a box for Search and a separate Cortana
button in the taskbar. Seems Cortana refuses to shut up and not divulge
my personal information in the lockscreen despite all the settings to
hide that info there.

OK, if it seems to be Cortana related, could you use this one ?

https://www.howtogeek.com/266144/how...0-lock-screen/

"Use Cortana even when my device is locked: Off"

There is a second one.

"Let Cortana access my calendar, email,
messages, and Power BI data when my
device is locked: Untick"

I don't think I've ever seen those before.

Now, since that is a "Settings" wheel within the "Circle" App,
that means the instructions are for 1903, and thus, not
applicable exactly to your setup. As I think 1903 is where
the Circle and the Search Box are separated for the first time.
You'll have to check and see if Cortana has a Settings wheel
on yours.

Paul

Paul wrote:

OK, if it seems to be Cortana related, could you use this one ?

https://www.howtogeek.com/266144/how...0-lock-screen/

"Use Cortana even when my device is locked: Off"

I have a good tutorial article from TenForums on how to disable Cortana.
I'll first try the one you mentioned since that just disables Cortana
from mucking up the lockscreen.

There is a second one.

"Let Cortana access my calendar, email,
messages, and Power BI data when my
device is locked: Untick"

I don't think I've ever seen those before.

Now, since that is a "Settings" wheel within the "Circle" App,
that means the instructions are for 1903, and thus, not
applicable exactly to your setup. As I think 1903 is where
the Circle and the Search Box are separated for the first time.
You'll have to check and see if Cortana has a Settings wheel
on yours.

Don't have 1903 yet. There is the "Use Cortana even when my device is
locked" setting under Settings - Cortana - Talk to Cortana. It was
already disabled.

I don't have the "Let Cortana access my calendar, email, messages, and
Power BI data when my device is locked" setting; however, if the first
setting is disabled, the 2nd should be irrelevant -- but the first might
have to do with disabling speech recognition in the lockscreen, yet I
also have the 'Let Cortana respond to "Hey, Cortana"' setting disabled.

Under Settings - Cortana, every setting is disabled except for "Get
phone notifications on this PC" which is described as "Cortana tells you
when you miss a phone call, text, or app notification." This is a
desktop PC. No cellular service to it. The quick access reminders are
telling me about events that are upcoming, not that have been missed.

After reading the article you mentioned, I already have that setting
disabled. It's infuriating that every setting that I've found that
might apply to the lockscreen is not honored.

The only reason that I have not yet disabled Cortana is that it is
integrated into the search function in build 1809. Not until 1903 will
Cortana be separated from the Search. When I get 1903 (wonder when that
might be), I'll be killing Cortana.

I'm an adult. I don't want a babysitter (even as a fantasy). I've been
doing my e-mails and scheduled events for many, many years without this
stupid handholding. I'm not handicapped, so I don't need speech
recognition. Cortana has been a bane. I left it enabled to trial it,
but it sucks. I've seen those commercials for Alexa, like the wife gets
home with her arms full of grocery bags and she can't manage to put them
down on the counter (which they show her doing) to turn on the oven and
instead need Alexa and buy a "smart" oven, so she can tell the oven to
turn on. While seen only, so far, in the sci-fi movies, I bet one day
there'll be sexbots. "Alexa, please me."

VanguardLH wrote:

After reading the article you mentioned, I already have that setting
disabled. It's infuriating that every setting that I've found that
might apply to the lockscreen is not honored.

Agree on the infuriating part.

So far, I've got the "Weather" one to occupy the lower left
corner, so I can at least see their feeble attempt at a
"gadget". But try as I might, flipping all the sliders "ON",
I cannot get my email status. Now, I know that there has
to be a pending email in the Inbox, for MAIL to alert you,
and I've done my best with my onboard POP3 server to
make that happen, but it still won't tell me "I have mail".

All I can get working is the "detailed" Weather display,
which consists of three lines of text.

One option for debugging this, might be to run ProcMon, then
lock the screen, wait a bit, log back in, stop ProcMon
and have a look. And see what registry entries are consulted.
There is a high likelihood of a huge number of registry
references in such a sequence, so the trace is likely
huge.

Paul

On 6/10/19 6:10 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Windows 10 Home x64 build 1803

I do not want any notifications on my lockscreen. This violates my
privacy by exposing my e-mails and calendar events to anyone that
wanders by my computer to look at the lockscreen. Mail and Calendar are
showing their notifications (reminders) on my lockscreen.

I'm not talking about the popup or toaster notifications on the bottom
right-side of the lockscreen although I also do NOT want those, either.
I'm talking about the in-screen notifications (aka reminders) about my
e-mails and scheduled events from the Mail and Calendar apps that appear
in the lockscreen at the bottom left. I don't want toaster popups about
my e-mails and calendar events. I don't want them as reminders within
the lockscreen image itself, either.

I have gone to "Settings - Personalization - Lock screen" and removed
all apps that were listed under "Choose apps to show quick status".
There is no Remove or Delete option. You click on the app in the list
and scroll to the top of the app list to select "None". I have gone to
"Settings - System - Notifications & actions" and deselected the "Show
notifications on lock screen" option. I also have "Show reminders and
incoming VOIP calls on the lock screen" disabled. I have logged off and
back on, in case those options are effected only on login. Nope, I
still get the reminders at the bottom left-side of the lockscreen under
the clock and datestamp lines.

OK..... So how do I suggest this, without irritating sensibilities... :-)

Rather than use the MS apps, why not try 3rd party software?


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Ken Springer wrote:
On 6/10/19 6:10 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Windows 10 Home x64 build 1803

I do not want any notifications on my lockscreen. This violates my
privacy by exposing my e-mails and calendar events to anyone that
wanders by my computer to look at the lockscreen. Mail and Calendar are
showing their notifications (reminders) on my lockscreen.

I'm not talking about the popup or toaster notifications on the bottom
right-side of the lockscreen although I also do NOT want those, either.
I'm talking about the in-screen notifications (aka reminders) about my
e-mails and scheduled events from the Mail and Calendar apps that appear
in the lockscreen at the bottom left. I don't want toaster popups about
my e-mails and calendar events. I don't want them as reminders within
the lockscreen image itself, either.

I have gone to "Settings - Personalization - Lock screen" and removed
all apps that were listed under "Choose apps to show quick status".
There is no Remove or Delete option. You click on the app in the list
and scroll to the top of the app list to select "None". I have gone to
"Settings - System - Notifications & actions" and deselected the "Show
notifications on lock screen" option. I also have "Show reminders and
incoming VOIP calls on the lock screen" disabled. I have logged off and
back on, in case those options are effected only on login. Nope, I
still get the reminders at the bottom left-side of the lockscreen under
the clock and datestamp lines.

OK..... So how do I suggest this, without irritating sensibilities...
:-)

Rather than use the MS apps, why not try 3rd party software?

It's OK to ask questions about how stuff is supposed to work.

It's patently obvious you shouldn't be using it. But
if someone asks "how does it work", "is it any good",
it doesn't look good to rubbish a product and then
say "and by the way, I've never used it".

I managed to send and receive mail with mine, so
that part works, but so far the Quick Status has
eluded me.

I think it's probably making "HTML mail" too, because
the spacing between lines is huge, and I couldn't
immediately see a setting to make the spacing
more reasonable. I haven't gotten far enough along
in the testing process, to say whether "quality mails"
are coming out of the thing :-) I'm not particularly
impressed by HTML mail - I don't know if you can
tell or not. I have HTML turned off in Thunderbird,
just as an expression of my feeling on the matter.

Paul

Ken Springer wrote:

On 6/10/19 6:10 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Windows 10 Home x64 build 1803

I do not want any notifications on my lockscreen. This violates my
privacy by exposing my e-mails and calendar events to anyone that
wanders by my computer to look at the lockscreen. Mail and Calendar are
showing their notifications (reminders) on my lockscreen.

I'm not talking about the popup or toaster notifications on the bottom
right-side of the lockscreen although I also do NOT want those, either.
I'm talking about the in-screen notifications (aka reminders) about my
e-mails and scheduled events from the Mail and Calendar apps that appear
in the lockscreen at the bottom left. I don't want toaster popups about
my e-mails and calendar events. I don't want them as reminders within
the lockscreen image itself, either.

I have gone to "Settings - Personalization - Lock screen" and removed
all apps that were listed under "Choose apps to show quick status".
There is no Remove or Delete option. You click on the app in the list
and scroll to the top of the app list to select "None". I have gone to
"Settings - System - Notifications & actions" and deselected the "Show
notifications on lock screen" option. I also have "Show reminders and
incoming VOIP calls on the lock screen" disabled. I have logged off and
back on, in case those options are effected only on login. Nope, I
still get the reminders at the bottom left-side of the lockscreen under
the clock and datestamp lines.

OK..... So how do I suggest this, without irritating sensibilities... :-)

Rather than use the MS apps, why not try 3rd party software?

I did have a subscription to Office 365 but let it run out about the
time I did the Win10 build. That gave me Outlook 2016/2019 which is a
hell of lot better than the Mail and Calendar and People apps that come
with Windows 10. Costs money, though. For now, and until I decide to
go back to Office 365, I'm using LibreOffice (but already have
encountered differences in how it renders docs and xlsx files), but it's
pretty good. Doesn't come with e-mail, calendar, or contact functions,
though. Sorry, don't bother suggesting Thunderbird to me. I trialed
that several times. The last time was the longest at 6 months, but I
couldn't stand it anymore and went back to Outlook. Back then, TB
didn't do Exchange. You had to get an extension (ExQuilla) to add
Exchange, and I don't know how robust is that extension. The
extension's web page notes "allows TB users to read messages and
contacts on MS Exchange Server." Okay, but calendar isn't mentioned,
and I need that. Their home site (https://www.exquilla.com/) says, "We
are planning an ExQuilla version with calendar." So, it doesn't have
calendar sync yet, but the Outlook client and emClient can do it. It is
also a *payware* extension to use in a freeware e-mail client. Not only
is ExQuilla payware, but it is also subscriptionware ($11.61 USB per
year). Not it's getting insulting to use this extension in Tbird. em
Client is a one-time fee ($50) to get more than 2 accounts in the free
version. I'm not looking for a few-year solution, but a many-year
solution.

While going back to MS Office 365 sounds like a more expensive solution
than going to em Client Pro, I've managed in the past to get the product
key cards a hell of a lot cheaper at eBay (after considerable research
on the sellers) than buying them from Microsoft. I don't buy just 1
year of subscription. I get 3 to 5 product key cards and register each
one in turn to add a year to the total subscription period. I bought 3
cards last time which gave me a 3-year subscription. With em Client
Pro, I get one license to use on one computer. With Office 365, I get
up to 5 licenses that can be installed as 1 license on 5 hosts. My
family would like to get the new version of Office, so the per-person
cost is a lot cheaper, plus each license gets a 1 TB quota at OneDrive.

emClient looks interesting but the free version only supports 2
accounts, and I have 4 accounts. I can trial it with just 2 to see if I
like it. Other than the 2-account restriction, it is fully functional.
It supports Exchange ActiveSync, so it should sync okay with my Hotmail
account (primary e-mail) and its calendaring and contacts just like how
Outlook works.

There is no guarantee that the lockscreen reminders will go away by
going to a 3rd party or other local app.

Do YOU actually know or are just guessing that Cortana or the Mail and
Calendar apps do not connect to my Hotmail account to then dump that
personal info on the lock screen? Because you said "try", I suspect
you're just guessing the 3rd party apps (well, other than Mail and
Calendar) won't pollute my lock screen. Since that personal data on
the lock screen appears to be a Cortana function, I'm guessing going
to 3rd party apps won't help. Killing Cortana is probably the fix.

I'm using a Microsoft account in Windows 10, not an offline or local
Windows accounts. That means Windows 10 *is* connecting to my online
account, so Cortana can get at my e-mails and events, and it appears
Cortana is the culprit of adding the quick access reminders on the lock
screen. I'm not quite ready to pull the plug on Cortana, but I likely
will. Cortana and the search are integrated. In 1903, they're
separated, so if I ever get 1903 then that's probably when I'll nuke
Cortana (and check if my lock screen becomes clean).

The MS account has some advantages and why I continue to use it;
however, I will have to eventually create an offline/local account for
scheduled events in Task Scheduler. The GUI version of Task Scheduler
doesn't know how to work with MS accounts and PINs to define events that
require login credentials. I need another account but a local one that
has the standard username & password login credentials to run my
scheduled events under that account (but that also means some that show
a log or error window won't appear since they're running under another
account that isn't active). I've read that the command-line
schtasks.exe program can use MS accounts, but I really don't want to
regress to a command line just because the GUI counterpart can't handle
MS accounts. Easier to create another local account, log into it (to
create its profile), use the Administrator account to copy my MS
account's profile over the local account's profile, and then use the
local account for those events that require login credentials, like
those events I want to run whether the user is logged in or not.

If it were just for me alone, I'd probably trial em Client to see if I'd
pay to get more than 2 accounts supported. Since the family wants a
later version of Office, I suspect I'll go back to the 365 subscription.
However, those choices have no assurance of getting the reminders
removed from the lock screen. See my 2nd reply (the one to Paul). From
what I've found out about Cortana and the lock screen, 3rd party apps
won't do anything to stop my personal data showing up on the lock
screen.

On 6/12/19 11:22 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
On 6/10/19 6:10 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Windows 10 Home x64 build 1803

I do not want any notifications on my lockscreen. This violates my
privacy by exposing my e-mails and calendar events to anyone that
wanders by my computer to look at the lockscreen. Mail and Calendar are
showing their notifications (reminders) on my lockscreen.

I'm not talking about the popup or toaster notifications on the bottom
right-side of the lockscreen although I also do NOT want those, either.
I'm talking about the in-screen notifications (aka reminders) about my
e-mails and scheduled events from the Mail and Calendar apps that appear
in the lockscreen at the bottom left. I don't want toaster popups about
my e-mails and calendar events. I don't want them as reminders within
the lockscreen image itself, either.

I have gone to "Settings - Personalization - Lock screen" and removed
all apps that were listed under "Choose apps to show quick status".
There is no Remove or Delete option. You click on the app in the list
and scroll to the top of the app list to select "None". I have gone to
"Settings - System - Notifications & actions" and deselected the "Show
notifications on lock screen" option. I also have "Show reminders and
incoming VOIP calls on the lock screen" disabled. I have logged off and
back on, in case those options are effected only on login. Nope, I
still get the reminders at the bottom left-side of the lockscreen under
the clock and datestamp lines.

OK..... So how do I suggest this, without irritating sensibilities...
:-)

Rather than use the MS apps, why not try 3rd party software?

It's OK to ask questions about how stuff is supposed to work.

It is, but sadly, most people don't. They just accept that how one
program does things is how all programs do it, and that way is the
"correct" way. They never seem to ask themselves, "Is there a better
way to do this?" :-(

It's patently obvious you shouldn't be using it. But
if someone asks "how does it work", "is it any good",
it doesn't look good to rubbish a product and then
say "and by the way, I've never used it".

I do my best to never use an MS supplied piece of software. I prefer to
not have my info or whatever being transmitted to "the mother ship".
None of their damned business, national security being a rare exception.

I've played a bit with the W10 mail app, so far not that impressed.

I managed to send and receive mail with mine, so
that part works, but so far the Quick Status has
eluded me.

I've not stumbled upon Quick Status yet.

I think it's probably making "HTML mail" too, because
the spacing between lines is huge, and I couldn't
immediately see a setting to make the spacing
more reasonable.

I'm sure it's doing HTML. None of the people I know outside of the
computer community even know what "text" email is.

I haven't gotten far enough along
in the testing process, to say whether "quality mails"
are coming out of the thing :-)

What's your definition of "quality mails"?

I'm not particularly
impressed by HTML mail - I don't know if you can
tell or not. I have HTML turned off in Thunderbird,
just as an expression of my feeling on the matter.

In the long run, I think HTML mail *should* be better for the reader,
but you have to assume the reader's system is capable of displaying it
correctly.

It's like creating a document in a word processor. How easy is it for
the reader to read the doc? I took some documents one time, and printed
2 sets. One set, using Times Roman/Dutch that everyone and their
brother likes to use. The other set I used Linux Libertine. Then I
asked people which set they found easier to read. No one picked Times
New Roman. LOL


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Ken Springer wrote:

What's your definition of "quality mails"?

One part of quality is that all sent e-mails should contain both a
plain-text version of the message along with an [optional] HTML MIME
part to add the formatting to the message. That is, when using HTML to
compose your e-mail, you are doubling its size (in a proper client): one
copy of the message is in the text portion of the body and a duplicate
of the message is in a MIME section for the HTML-formatted version. The
duplication is usually a trivial concern since most e-mails are under
15KB in size; however, for really huge e-mails, the duplication can make
the message so large that it exceeds your provider's outbound quota, the
recipient's inbound max message size, or can't fit in their Inbox
(because they use the Inbox as a long-term trash cart). Just because a
sender likes to have formatting with an HTML e-mails doesn't mean
everyone uses a client that can render HTML e-mails. Without the text
version of the message, a client can't show the text but may show the
HTML coding of the message. Some text-only clients are smart enough to
figure out how to strip out the HTML code in HTML-only message, but they
make mistakes. Some clients don't have that, so the only body of the
message they can show is the part with all the HTML coding. To be
polite to your recipients, your client should put your message in a text
section (and optionally duplicate the message in an HTML MIME part in
the body of the message if the sender just must feel compelled to use
HTML to add more or better formatting than available with plain text).

At one time, Microsoft's Hotmail service did not create both text and
HTML copies of the message in an HTML-formatted e-mail (which was the
only method available using their webmail client). This was very rude.
Every other e-mail service that I had tried, and even when using their
webmail client instead of a local e-mail client, had the 2 sections. In
fact, if your message has nothing that requires HTML then the client
should send only the text part (no HTML part). I don't remember how
long that lasted, but it took lots of complaints (but only by those that
look at the raw source of their message to see there was only an HTML
part, and the text part was missing).

I've run across some e-mail clients that do not add the References
header. The client adds that, not the sender's SMTP server. That
header provides the threading of replies to show the hierarcy of who
said what to whom. When someone uses a client that omits the References
header, their replies start a whole new but disconnected thread.

I ran into that for users of Microsoft's Outlook app for Android.
That's the problem when writing new apps for a different platform: the
apps are necessarily smaller meaning they cannot have as much code as
the legacy desktop program, plus often the new app is getting written by
new programmers who don't have the historical knowledge of the e-mail
protocols, Internet message formats, or de facto standards. I'd start a
discussing via e-mail, the replies where hierarchical, except for anyone
using the Outlook Android app which was missing the References header.
As I recall, it was over a year of complaints before Microsoft fixed
their Android app.

What is not realized by most e-mail users is that ALL e-mail gets sent
as plain text. I mean ALL of it. The headers, the plain text section
in the body, *and* the MIME part for the HTML-encoded duplicate of the
message. HTML is just text using tags to delineate formatting. A
hyperlink, for example, looks like "A href={location} {attributes} a
comment string /A". The HTML-formatted copy of the message is not in
some binary format. Even when you attach a file to your e-mail, there
is no binary file somehow following along with the e-mail. The file
gets converted from its binary version into a very long text string.
The attachment is encoded into text and positioned within a MIME part in
the body of the message to delineate the attached file. The entire
e-mail message is all text. So, even though you may use HTML to format
your e-mail, your e-mail is still sent as text. If you've ever seen and
XML document, you'll understand that it uses tags to delineate the
structure of the data within. It's an XML file but it is still a text
file. You can use Notepad to view an .htm file (as, as "real"
programmers will claim, all they need to write a web page is Notepad) or
even use "type file.htm" in a command shell to show all the text
inside that HTML file. There is no binary encoding when using HTML.

In article , VanguardLH
wrote:


What's your definition of "quality mails"?

One part of quality is that all sent e-mails should contain both a
plain-text version of the message along with an [optional] HTML MIME
part to add the formatting to the message.

that's not quality, that's technically required.

That is, when using HTML to
compose your e-mail, you are doubling its size (in a proper client): one
copy of the message is in the text portion of the body and a duplicate
of the message is in a MIME section for the HTML-formatted version. The
duplication is usually a trivial concern since most e-mails are under
15KB in size; however, for really huge e-mails, the duplication can make
the message so large that it exceeds your provider's outbound quota, the
recipient's inbound max message size, or can't fit in their Inbox
(because they use the Inbox as a long-term trash cart).

nonsense. the size limit is sufficient to handle attachments, and an
email that is just text, even with an html counterpart, is not going to
reach that limit.

Just because a
sender likes to have formatting with an HTML e-mails doesn't mean
everyone uses a client that can render HTML e-mails. Without the text
version of the message, a client can't show the text but may show the
HTML coding of the message.

many times, it shows nothing at all.

Some text-only clients are smart enough to
figure out how to strip out the HTML code in HTML-only message, but they
make mistakes.

nope.




I ran into that for users of Microsoft's Outlook app for Android.
That's the problem when writing new apps for a different platform: the
apps are necessarily smaller meaning they cannot have as much code as
the legacy desktop program, plus often the new app is getting written by
new programmers who don't have the historical knowledge of the e-mail
protocols, Internet message formats, or de facto standards.

nonsense. you know nothing about mobile app development.

I'd start a
discussing via e-mail, the replies where hierarchical, except for anyone
using the Outlook Android app which was missing the References header.
As I recall, it was over a year of complaints before Microsoft fixed
their Android app.

it doesn't matter anywhere near as much as you think it does.

What is not realized by most e-mail users is that ALL e-mail gets sent
as plain text. I mean ALL of it.

also wrong.

there are several email providers that send/receive encrypted email,
and users can also do so on their own.

On 13/06/2019 15.15, nospam wrote:
In article , VanguardLH
wrote:


What's your definition of "quality mails"?

One part of quality is that all sent e-mails should contain both a
plain-text version of the message along with an [optional] HTML MIME
part to add the formatting to the message.

that's not quality, that's technically required.

Nope. I can send any kind: just plain text, just html, or both. It's a
choice, not a requirement.


That is, when using HTML to
compose your e-mail, you are doubling its size (in a proper client): one
copy of the message is in the text portion of the body and a duplicate
of the message is in a MIME section for the HTML-formatted version. The
duplication is usually a trivial concern since most e-mails are under
15KB in size; however, for really huge e-mails, the duplication can make
the message so large that it exceeds your provider's outbound quota, the
recipient's inbound max message size, or can't fit in their Inbox
(because they use the Inbox as a long-term trash cart).

nonsense. the size limit is sufficient to handle attachments, and an
email that is just text, even with an html counterpart, is not going to
reach that limit.

Depends on the server. If the limit is 100K, and the post is 80K plain
text, the total post will be over 200 K and will bounce. That you say
100 K is absurd? Probably. I have used servers with 1 MB limit. Try to
send a 5 MB post through gmail, the last time I tried it bounced.


Just because a
sender likes to have formatting with an HTML e-mails doesn't mean
everyone uses a client that can render HTML e-mails. Without the text
version of the message, a client can't show the text but may show the
HTML coding of the message.

many times, it shows nothing at all.

Nope


Some text-only clients are smart enough to
figure out how to strip out the HTML code in HTML-only message, but they
make mistakes.

nope.

Oh yes.


I ran into that for users of Microsoft's Outlook app for Android.
That's the problem when writing new apps for a different platform: the
apps are necessarily smaller meaning they cannot have as much code as
the legacy desktop program, plus often the new app is getting written by
new programmers who don't have the historical knowledge of the e-mail
protocols, Internet message formats, or de facto standards.

nonsense. you know nothing about mobile app development.

Well, but you fail to give an explanation of why they lack features and
make big errors...


I'd start a
discussing via e-mail, the replies where hierarchical, except for anyone
using the Outlook Android app which was missing the References header.
As I recall, it was over a year of complaints before Microsoft fixed
their Android app.

it doesn't matter anywhere near as much as you think it does.

It matters a lot. I have seen the disasters this causes.


What is not realized by most e-mail users is that ALL e-mail gets sent
as plain text. I mean ALL of it.

also wrong.

there are several email providers that send/receive encrypted email,
and users can also do so on their own.

Still text.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

In article , Carlos E.R.
wrote:

What's your definition of "quality mails"?

One part of quality is that all sent e-mails should contain both a
plain-text version of the message along with an [optional] HTML MIME
part to add the formatting to the message.

that's not quality, that's technically required.

Nope. I can send any kind: just plain text, just html, or both. It's a
choice, not a requirement.

html mail should always have a plain text version so that recipients
are guaranteed to be able to read the contents no matter what email
client they use. if the client can't render html, then the text will be
readable, just without the fancy formatting.

better yet, html mail should not be used for all sorts of reasons, but
that's not going to happen any time soon.

That is, when using HTML to
compose your e-mail, you are doubling its size (in a proper client): one
copy of the message is in the text portion of the body and a duplicate
of the message is in a MIME section for the HTML-formatted version. The
duplication is usually a trivial concern since most e-mails are under
15KB in size; however, for really huge e-mails, the duplication can make
the message so large that it exceeds your provider's outbound quota, the
recipient's inbound max message size, or can't fit in their Inbox
(because they use the Inbox as a long-term trash cart).

nonsense. the size limit is sufficient to handle attachments, and an
email that is just text, even with an html counterpart, is not going to
reach that limit.

Depends on the server. If the limit is 100K, and the post is 80K plain
text, the total post will be over 200 K and will bounce. That you say
100 K is absurd? Probably. I have used servers with 1 MB limit. Try to
send a 5 MB post through gmail, the last time I tried it bounced.

a general rule of thumb is 2k per page of plain text, so your example
of 80k plain text is about 40 pages.

that's an insanely long email, by anyone's standards.

something that long should be written and edited in a separate app and
then sent as an attachment, or a link to a cloud copy.

Just because a
sender likes to have formatting with an HTML e-mails doesn't mean
everyone uses a client that can render HTML e-mails. Without the text
version of the message, a client can't show the text but may show the
HTML coding of the message.

many times, it shows nothing at all.

Nope

wrong. i've seen that happen many, many times.

Some text-only clients are smart enough to
figure out how to strip out the HTML code in HTML-only message, but they
make mistakes.

nope.

Oh yes.

nope. that's difficult to impossible to reliably do. there's also no
need to do that since if a developer is going to write code to extract
text from html, they might as well just render the html.

'they make mistakes' is an understatement, if it even tries.

I ran into that for users of Microsoft's Outlook app for Android.
That's the problem when writing new apps for a different platform: the
apps are necessarily smaller meaning they cannot have as much code as
the legacy desktop program, plus often the new app is getting written by
new programmers who don't have the historical knowledge of the e-mail
protocols, Internet message formats, or de facto standards.

nonsense. you know nothing about mobile app development.

Well, but you fail to give an explanation of why they lack features and
make big errors...

features depend on what the app developer chooses to provide, which has
absolutely nothing to do with mobile or desktop nor does it only apply
to email apps.

the belief that mobile apps as a group are somehow less functional is
simply bull****. in fact, the opposite is often the case since that's
where the best developers are.

for apps that exist on both mobile and desktop (not jut email), the
core functionality is often shared code between the two, with the user
interface code being different (and in some cases, not by very much).

I'd start a
discussing via e-mail, the replies where hierarchical, except for anyone
using the Outlook Android app which was missing the References header.
As I recall, it was over a year of complaints before Microsoft fixed
their Android app.

it doesn't matter anywhere near as much as you think it does.

It matters a lot. I have seen the disasters this causes.

it's rare.

What is not realized by most e-mail users is that ALL e-mail gets sent
as plain text. I mean ALL of it.

also wrong.

there are several email providers that send/receive encrypted email,
and users can also do so on their own.

Still text.

it is *not* plain text.

As a related problem, I just got a suggestion in the Action Center about
using OneDrive (which I have configured to synchronize only on files and
folders in the OneDrive folder, *not* on all files which really means
what Microsoft deems important, like Documents, Pictures, etc).

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...-action-center

I already have the Suggestions option disabled. So, Microsoft is not
honoring the settings by the user to quiet their crap content.

Perhaps the adware notification puked into the Action Center was issued
by the OneDrive app. I'm growing very weary of every ****ing author
thinking I want their crap messages. Gee, they only see it's their app
polluting the Action Center rather than lots of apps doing this. It's
like a long time ago when lots of programs wanted to puke out a banner
screen when their program loaded. Gee, it's only our program doing
this. Wrong! Any and every programmer with the same inane mentality
pukes out an adware banner screen when their program loads. Some
started adding an option to not show their banner on load. Some never
added an option to SHUT UP! I use HD Sentinel to monitor the health of
my drives, but they also want to puke out a crap message every time it
auto-updates. Yep, the choice is to disable their auto-update function
just because the author thinks their product just must be noisy about it
doing an update.

Could be the OneDrive app puking its adware notification into the Action
Center. I could disable its notifications, but then I would lose them
all. I'm not sure any OneDrive notifications are important to me. I
don't share files. If I did, I wouldn't care when someone decided to
open the file or get a copy; else, I wouldn't share. Besides its "Oh my
God, you aren't synchronizing on everything that OneDrive can do, so you
just must reconfigure it to use every funtion in OneDrive", what other
notifications does OneDrive issue?

I already have OneDrive's adware suggestions disabled in File Explorer;
see https://www.thewindowsclub.com/turn-...tions-explorer.
Guess I'll have to completely disable all OneDrive notifications,
including the adware crap, in the Action Center, too.