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



 
 
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  #16  
Old September 15th 18, 10:10 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
NY
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Posts: 586
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

"Wolf K" wrote in message
...
On 2018-09-14 15:39, NY wrote:
[...]

The real problem with Win 10 is that it doesn't have a proper
email/newsgroup client, now that Windows Live Mail has been withdrawn
from being available for download. T

[...]

I don't think that's a problem. :-)


The first release of WLM was OK - very similar to OE and to Windows Mail on
Vista. The only difference between OE and WM/WLM is that OE stored all the
messages for a folder in the same file, whereas WM and WLM use one file per
email, which takes longer to search "all messages containing this text"
because the program does lots of file opens.

The second version of WLM had the dreaded Microsoft Ribbon interface and is
horrible to use. I can never remember where the account details are
accessed. But it does have a built-in calendar which was in WM on Vista but
for some reason was removed from the first version of WLM. It also tries to
force you to attach photos etc using web sharing rather than as a
MIME/UUENCODED part of the message. This is more efficient when you are
looking for new messages, but in my experience there are too many cases when
the recipient is forced to create an MS account simply in order to see
attachments on an incoming mail.

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. I'm all in favour of the MS philosophy of
providing several ways of achieving the same result, so as to suit all
preferences.

It's a shame that more email programs don't do what OE/WM/WLM do and save
the email account details (POP/SMTP server, username/password, ports) to a
config file which can easily be imported to another instance of the program
on another PC so you don't have to copy all the details out and have the
dreaded "now WTF is the password" problem. Even Outlook doesn't have that -
it's only the non-Office email programs that do it.

By the way, what were MS smoking when they decided to use the same name
Outlook both for their Office email program and also their mail domain. The
possibilities for confusion are notorious.

Ads
  #17  
Old September 15th 18, 02:17 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 13:52, Wolf K wrote:

On 2018-09-15 05:10, NY wrote:

It's a shame that more email programs don't do what OE/WM/WLM do and
save the email account details (POP/SMTP server, username/password,
ports) to a config file which can easily be imported to another
instance of the program on another PC so you don't have to copy all
the details out and have the dreaded "now WTF is the password"
problem. Even Outlook doesn't have that - it's only the non-Office
email programs that do it.


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.

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.


Yes. FTR, by default in Vista+ they are stored in ...
C:\Users\username\Application Data\Thunderbird
.... (ISTR that there is a profiles directory there, and inside that the
directory for the default profile created upon installation, which has a
random name, but as I've moved all such data to a separate partition,
and created separate profiles for Mail and News as previously described,
these two latter directories on the C: drive no longer exist, the only
profile data that remains there is the profiles.ini file to tell
Thunderbird where my profiles now are).

  #18  
Old September 15th 18, 02:44 PM 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 , Wolf K
writes:
On 2018-09-14 15:39, NY wrote:
[...]
The real problem with Win 10 is that it doesn't have a proper
email/newsgroup client, now that Windows Live Mail has been withdrawn
from being available for download. T

[...]

I don't think that's a problem. :-)


(-: - WLM, 15 on at least, was the bane of many newsgroups - I know
people who killfiled its users! I didn't know it had been withdrawn.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

They are public servants, so we will threat them rather as Flashman treats
servants. - Stephen Fry on some people's attitudo to the BBC, in Radio Times,
3-9 July 2010
  #19  
Old September 15th 18, 02:47 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Big Al[_5_]
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Posts: 1,588
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to somethingafter all."

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.Â* 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
convertedÂ*itÂ*allÂ*toÂ*T'bird,Â*andÂ*nowÂ*useÂ*th atÂ*asÂ*myÂ*emailÂ*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.

Al.
  #20  
Old September 15th 18, 04:11 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 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.Â* 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
convertedÂ*itÂ*allÂ*toÂ*T'bird,Â*andÂ*nowÂ*useÂ*th atÂ*asÂ*myÂ*emailÂ*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.Â*Â*Â* That file includes everything to get and send mail but
IIRC it lacks configuration of Outlook itself, so view, colors, etc need
reset.Â*Â* 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.
  #21  
Old September 15th 18, 04:36 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
NY
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 586
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

"Java Jive" wrote in message
news
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
iles - 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
o - 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.


I prefer this approach too. And for another reason as well: if you take
frequent backups of your email folders, you only have to back up the new or
changed .eml files with WM or WLM. With OE, which stored all the emails in
an email folder in a single .dbx file, you'd have to back up that whole file
if there were any changes to emails in the email folder. With Outlook, you
have to backup the whole .pst file (and I've seen some which are a couple of
GB) for *any* change in *any* of the email folders.

If a backup takes a long time, people will not do it as frequently.

  #22  
Old September 15th 18, 04:41 PM 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 , Java Jive
writes:
[]
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'd rather mails were kept as individual files, so that if one gets


So would I, but I'm unaware of any Windows client that does it that way.
I think the original reason was speed and storage - when they started
doing it, most emails were probably a few hundred bytes but would use
(say) 4k if stored as a file, which could build up, as well as perhaps
speed problems in accessing such files. And for whatever reason they've
never changed.

corrupted, only one email is lost, and in a format that is open source,


Berkeley, I think it's called.

though obviously it still needs to be encrypted. That helps guard


For private single-user use, not even that, necessarily! (If nothing
else, any such encryption means you couldn't use any sort of search
mechanism outside the email client.) I accept you might want it for
security, especially in a multi-user system.

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.


I don't K of one either.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

As individuals, politicians are usually quite charming, so it is quite hard to
dislike them, but in most cases, it is worth making the effort.
- Mark Williams (UMRA), 2013-4-26
  #23  
Old September 15th 18, 06:03 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

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

There's a program called undbx that can convert an
OE DBX to single email files. TBird email storage can
be parsed directly.

I wrote my own utility awhile back:

www.jsware.net/jsware/msicode.php5#msiebase

It's an HTA interface (local webpage) powered by
VBScript and MSI database files. I use it to back up
years worth of email in a manner that can be easily
searched. (MSI search is very fast.) There's Base-64
decoding built-in for things like attachments, though
I haven't been saving large attachments in the database.


  #24  
Old September 15th 18, 06:18 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Mark Lloyd[_2_]
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Posts: 1,756
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to somethingafter all."

On 09/15/2018 04:09 AM, T wrote:
On 09/14/2018 11:53 AM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
I do too (run Linux). I do have a few programs that require Windows,
and I use 7 for them.


I put my Windows in a virtual machines.Â* W7 runs okay; W-Nein (w10)
os a dog.


Same here.

--
101 days until the winter celebration (Tue Dec 25, 2018 12:00:00 AM for
1 day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"No god ever gave any man anything, nor ever answered any prayer at any
time -nor ever will." [Madelyn O'Hair, "An Atheist Epic"]
  #25  
Old September 15th 18, 06:23 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
notX
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Posts: 68
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to somethingafter all."

On 09/15/2018 04:10 AM, NY wrote:

[snip]

By the way, what were MS smoking when they decided to use the same name
Outlook both for their Office email program and also their mail domain.
The possibilities for confusion are notorious.


and Outlook Express, which many call "Outlook".

Like Java / JavaScript, they benefit from user confusion. It makes them
more dependent on the corporation.

I once saw a documentary that said that corporations are essentially
psychopaths (not caring about anything but profit). Makes sense.
  #26  
Old September 15th 18, 06:26 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Mark Lloyd[_2_]
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Posts: 1,756
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to somethingafter all."

On 09/15/2018 07:52 AM, Wolf K wrote:

[snip]

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.

Best,


I have successfully copied Thunderbird and Firefox profiles between
Windows and Linux. That's one way TB is better than some programs, all
the data is in one obvious place.

--
101 days until the winter celebration (Tue Dec 25, 2018 12:00:00 AM for
1 day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"No god ever gave any man anything, nor ever answered any prayer at any
time -nor ever will." [Madelyn O'Hair, "An Atheist Epic"]
  #27  
Old September 15th 18, 07:17 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Frank Slootweg
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Posts: 1,226
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

NY wrote:
[...]
It's a shame that more email programs don't do what OE/WM/WLM do and save
the email account details (POP/SMTP server, username/password, ports) to a
config file which can easily be imported to another instance of the program
on another PC so you don't have to copy all the details out and have the
dreaded "now WTF is the password" problem. Even Outlook doesn't have that -
it's only the non-Office email programs that do it.


With the 'ImportExportTools' Extension, you can export and import TB
profiles.

Without Extensions or/and Plugins, Thunderbird's functionality can be
rather limited, compared to MUAs such as OE/WM/WLM. So when something
seems to be missing', it's worth your while to have a look on what's
available via the 'Add-ons manager'.

For example, I needed the 'ImportExportTools' Extension to import
messages from Windows Mail and the 'Change quote and reply format'
Extension in order to be able to reply to mail in a sane (plain) text
format.
  #28  
Old September 15th 18, 08:07 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Ant[_2_]
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Posts: 554
Default "Maybe all those people clinging to Windows 7 are on to something after all."

notX wrote:
....
I once saw a documentary that said that corporations are essentially
psychopaths (not caring about anything but profit). Makes sense.


Which documentary was that? I'd like to see it.
--
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Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
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  #29  
Old September 15th 18, 08:39 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 18:24:43 +0100, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Frank Slootweg
writes:
[quoted text muted]
*am* clinging to Windows 8.1, even while Windows 10 was *supposed* to be
better than 8.1 (Yeah, RIGHT! :-().

[1] Went from (XP to) Vista to 8.1, just before 10 broke out.


I like "broke out". Makes it sound like an epidemic (which is probably
what you intended, and arguably it is one).


+1

For the first year, roughly, it was spread like malware (or a PUP, if
you want to be mealymouthed).

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...
  #30  
Old September 15th 18, 08:41 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 13:53:59 -0500, Mark Lloyd wrote:
I tried the Win 8 preview. The first thing I thought when it installed
was how I really don't want an iPhone (since that's what it looked like,
not like Windows).


Too late now, I guess, but Windows key + D gets you back to the
normal desktop, and there's a setting to boot into the desktop at
login, instead of the default Fisher-Price interface.

But I couldn't get around the missing Start Menu. I tried for over a
year on my Win 8 laptop, and finally, with a sigh of relief,
installed Classic Shell.

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




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