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General discussion

Re: default email handler problem...

Nov 26, 2003 5:05PM PST

This morning I tried (twice) to reply to Bob Proffitt's message of November 19, 7:57 AM, but the system wouldn't accept my reply. So I'm starting a new thread in the hope that this will work.

Thanks, Bob. As Cole Porter put it: 'You're the tops!'

Following your suggestion, yesterday I downloaded IE5.5 SP2 from
http://browsers.evolt.org and IEradicator from
www.litepc.com/ieradicator.html.

Then ran ieradicator, and uninstalled OE5 (per MS KB art. 256219, 'How to
Manually Uninstall Outlook Express 5.x...'). Then installed IE5.5 SP2,
restored OE messages, address book, mail settings,etc (backed up earlier).

It all went swimmingly. I only had two moments of anxiety: first, during the
OE5 uninstall, towards the end of the 'delete registry sub-keys' routine, MS
KB art. 256219 says: 'Find and rename the following files:
Msoeacct.dll, Msoert2.dll, Msoe.dll, Msoeres.dll, Oeimport.dll,
Csapi3t1.dll, Directdb.dll, Wab32.dll and Wab32res.dll'

Unfortunately, it doesn't say what the new names should be!! So I just had
to ignore it. So far, it doesn't seem to have made any difference as things
seem to be working OK. Do you have any thoughts on the matter?

Then, during the final re-boot, I got the error message: 'The file Show
Desktop.scf on (Unknown) is needed. Type the path where the file is located,
then click OK'

This is meaningless to me. I note that 'C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM' is already in the
window, so click 'OK'. No joy.
Think that maybe this missing file is on my Win98SE CD, so insert it and
type 'F:\' (my CD-ROM drive). Still no joy.
So click 'Skip' and press on. It doesn't seem to make any difference as, so
far, everything seems to be working OK.
Do you have any ideas on this one?

Anyway, final upshot is that my problem is solved, and that I now have OE5
as my default email handler, and I can use Word 2000 as my email editor.The only problem I have is that I cannot set my email message 'send' font. I set the font with Tools>Options>Compose>Compose Font Mail>Font Settings, but when I actually type a new message, it's in the dreaded Times New Roman (which I hate!). Is there a way round this?

Thanks again, Bob.

Best

old codger

Discussion is locked

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PART I.
Nov 26, 2003 9:28PM PST

1. towards the end of the 'delete registry sub-keys' routine, MS KB art. 256219 says: 'Find and rename the following files: Msoeacct.dll, Msoert2.dll, Msoe.dll, Msoeres.dll, Oeimport.dll, Csapi3t1.dll, Directdb.dll, Wab32.dll and Wab32res.dll'

Unfortunately, it doesn't say what the new names should be!! So I just had to ignore it. So far, it doesn't seem to have made any difference as things seem to be working OK. Do you have any thoughts on the matter?


I would have to state that whomever wrote that article at Microsoft is really saying -- and incorrectly in my opinion to rename them, is to avoid their use subsequently. Really, why rename them. If it were me, I would have simply deleted them. Something you can't do now however since these files are now part of the current setup.

2. Then, during the final re-boot, I got the error message: 'The file Show Desktop.scf on (Unknown) is needed. Type the path where the file is located, then click OK'

This is meaningless to me. I note that 'C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM' is already in the window, so click 'OK'. No joy. Think that maybe this missing file is on my Win98SE CD, so insert it and type 'F:\' (my CD-ROM drive). Still no joy. So click 'Skip' and press on. It doesn't seem to make any difference as, so far, everything seems to be working OK. Do you have any ideas on this one?

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PART II.
Nov 26, 2003 9:28PM PST

1. The Specialized Utilities (Click to see an example screenshot) Show Desktop and View Channels:

a. These utilities are Show Desktop and View Channels, and are files with an extension of .scf that can be seen only in the file's properties -- so don't go looking..

b. During the installation of Internet Explorer, two copies of each file are installed by default.

(1) A copy of each reside in the C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch folder and is the actually the source of items that appear on the Quick Launch toolbar.

(2) Second copy resides in the C:\Windows\System folder as backups.

Note: If either or both, the Show Desktop or View Channels icon from the Quick Launch toolbar get deleted, become corrupt, or is missing in action and you want an icon showing for them, simply copy the correct file from the C:\Windows\System folder to the Quick Launch folder. Else, [Q190355] and [Q195737].

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PART III.
Nov 26, 2003 9:28PM PST

2. Check the system registry values at the following keys:

a. HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\GrpConv\MapGroups

Note: Its string value in the right window should be similar to: - Quick Launch "C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch"

b. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\ClassicShell

Note: Its binary value in the right window should be: - ClassicShell 01 00 00 00

c. When the Quick Launch toolbar is viewed, icons may be missing or unavailable and the Toolbars command are useless when right-clicking the taskbar if the above key value is set to 0x0000, [Q273785]: