At 02:42 AM 2/6/2002 -0500, you wrote: >Hi again Patije. It seems you STILL have some very serious problems >with your Eudora. These things keep happening with your program >and they should NOT happen! There is something, somewhere, in some >of the Eudora files that has become corrupted. I don't think you will >ever solve it until you completely uninstall Eudora, clean out the Registry, >and then reinstall. This is, of course, AFTER you have backed up ALL >the files that contain your Mailboxes, Folders, and Emails. George, You say "clean out the registry" as if it were a fairly simple matter. Is there an easy way to identify what part of the registry it's safe to delete? I've always been afraid to tamper with the registry. TIA Lee

Hi Lee. You are wise in asking about editing the Registry. It is NOT a task taken lightly, and one must know how, and what, to do. First, let me say that everyone should have a copy of a free utility first made available by PC Magazine almost 3 years ago. It is called "Registry Editor Plus". When it is installed and used, it calls a copy of the normal Windows Registry Editor. You will see the normal window in the bottom portion of the window, and RegEdit+ in the top part. You should always work from the dialogs in the top part. The great thing about Reg Edit+ is that if you change something and it doesn't work, "Plus" allows you to go back to any/all changes and put them back the way the were. That said, to download a copy, go here: http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,a%253D8534,00.asp Whether you use the normal Windows RegEdit, or RegEdit+, don't mess with anything unless you are absolutely sure you know what you are doing. In the case of "fixing" Eudora, after backing up ALL critical files and uninstalling, you would want to "take a look" in the Registry to see if there is anything remaining there that the uninstall didn't remove. The problem of installing upgrades to programs is that users don't always install the upgrades in the same directories as the original. Or a user may install something in a specific directory, then uninstall it, and later reinstall it to a different directory that the first time. Because Windows is flaky and doesn't always remove everything from the Registry after an uninstall, you can end up with lots of conflicting info in the Registry. (RegEdit+ works with Win95 and Win98, but not WinNT. Don't know if it works with WinME, Win2000, or WinXT.) STOP HERE!!!!! Before going any further, navigate to C:\Windows\ and copy these two files to some safe place. These are the two files that make up the "Registry". (If worse comes to worse, you can always reboot to DOS and copy these files back to C:\Windows to restore the original directory. There are other ways to do it, but this is a "sure" way.) USER.DAT SYSTEM.DAT So, when someone has installed, uninstalled, re-installed, installed upgrades, uninstalled, and then done the whole thing all over again, it is very likely that the Registry needs looking at. Whatever you use to edit the Registry, here is what you are looking for, AFTER you have completely uninstalled Eudora: Open RegEdit or RegEdit+; Press CTRL+F; In the "Find" window, type "eudora" (without the quotes) and make sure that all three boxes under "Look At" are checked, Keys, Values, and Data. Click "Find Next". Wait.....Wait.....Wait.....Wait..... Sooner or later the search will find any "eudora" entries if there are any left in the Registry. (There shouldn't be any if users uninstall correctly. I've known people who, instead of uninstalling, just deleted the directory/folder where a program was located. Then tried to reinstall. Merely deleting a program does NOT remove all the myriads of things Windows puts on your computer!) When/If the Find locates an entry for Eudora, you want to DELETE that entry! Since you have already uninstalled Eudora, there is no reason for there to be ANY entries for it in the Registry files. Make sure the entry is focused on -- left-click it to make sure. Hopefully, you are using RegEdit+. If so, at the top, click "Safe Edit", then "Delete". A window will pop up asking if you're SURE. Click "OK". Then, left-click somewhere in "Registry Editor", not "Registry Editor Plus". (In other words, you want the bottom part of the screen to be active, not the top part.) Hit the F3 button. This will cause the "Find" utility to start where it left off. Every time you find a "Eudora" entry, no matter if it's on the left side or the right side of the screen, highlight it by left-clicking, then go through the above routine to delete it. Keep hitting F3 until you get a message that nothing more could be found. At that point, you should have all references to Eudora removed from the Registry. THEN, you can safely reinstall Eudora and copy all you saved data files back to the Eudora directory. NOTE: Using RegEdit+, to RESTORE any changes you made, at the top, click "Tools", then "History". You will see a list of all the changes you made. You can click on one of them and click "Undo". That will put that value back the way it was originally. Here are the files that should be backed up before uninstalling Eudora: The following files are the ones you MUST backup. They must be saved/backed up in a manner that saves them in the PROPER directories. (In other words, put back in the directory or sub- directories from whence they came.) *.CLX *.DAT *.ELC *.INI (EUDORA.INI should be saved, but not restored. In other words save it somewhere else other than in the main place you are saving the rest of these files.) *.EPI *.MBX (Very critical) *.PCE *.TLX (Very Critical) *.TOC (Very Critical) *.P7B ROOTCERT.* *.FOL (Very critical) Directories: NICKNAME ATTACH EMBEDDED FILTERS PLUGINS SIGS The above files are also the ones you want to backup if you use a daily backup program. They are the ones that hold all the data for your Mailboxes, Folders, and Emails. SgtGeorge (P.S. While you're at it, you might take a look at all the free utilities that PCMag has offered in the magazine for the past 5 years. Lots of great things there:) <http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,s%253D1478%2526a%253D20688,00.asp> At 02/06/2002 08:29 AM Wednesday, Lee Welch wrote: *********START OF ORIGINAL MESSAGE TEXT********* >At 02:42 AM 2/6/2002 -0500, you wrote: >>Hi again Patije. It seems you STILL have some very serious problems >>with your Eudora. These things keep happening with your program >>and they should NOT happen! There is something, somewhere, in some >>of the Eudora files that has become corrupted. I don't think you >>will >>ever solve it until you completely uninstall Eudora, clean out the >>Registry, >>and then reinstall. This is, of course, AFTER you have backed up ALL >>the files that contain your Mailboxes, Folders, and Emails. > >George, >You say "clean out the registry" as if it were a fairly simple matter. >Is there an easy way to identify what part of the registry it's safe >to delete? >I've always been afraid to tamper with the registry. > >TIA >Lee **********END OF ORIGINAL MESSAGE TEXT**********