Outlook Express - speed issue

[Ancient Observer]

On my XP SP3 desktop, Outlook Express has slowed down a lot in the last few days. I use it for my e-mail (via btinternet). In particular, it takes a lot more time to load than it used to. I've made no other chnges to the pc setup (that I'm aware of).

I've run McAfee and Spybot, and these do not report any security issues. I'm wondering whether any of Mr Gates' millions of updates might have done something.

1. has anyone else using Outlook Express experienced the same problem - in the last few days?
2. any ideas about the cause?
thanks
AO

[Parapunter]

Do you also concurrently run windows messenger?

[Ancient Observer]

It is sometimes running in the background.
Following your question, I've check the speed with it and without it. It doesn't appear to make a difference. However, I'll try again in the morning when the "in" tray of OE has more in it.

[Parapunter]

Ok, not that then - OEX is known to slow down if messenger is disabled in certain circumstances, as it looks to launch messenger but it's not there.

It could be a number of things - have a look here for a decent guide to OEX performance issues.

Inside Outlook Express - Errors, Bugs and Problems - Performance Problems (http://www.insideoe.com/problems/performance.htm#slowstart)

[Gertrude the Wombat]

You might have switched on McAfee's scanning of emails, which with OE is a complete disaster in performance terms.

My message base is only a few gigabytes, but with McAfee scanning turned on it can take tens of minutes for OE to start up. Turn off the McAfee scanning and it goes back to normal.

This behaviour of McAfee is completely pointless of course - there's no reason to scan the tens of thousands of historical messages in the message base that have already been scanned countless times, the need is just to scan incoming messages. I haven't found setting that does that, so I just leave McAfee email scanning turned completely off.

[opfixclear]

I had the same problem a few months back. At the time I was with Orange but have since moved to BT.
I always dowloaded my emails using OE and did not actually log on to the actual Orange site. After a few days of painfully slow email downloads I decided to retrieve them from the website.
I could not believe what I saw. There were over 14,000 spam mails in my junk folder and OE had slowed because it was scanning each message before sending any new mail to my inbox.
I ditched the junk and Orange.
It's a long-shot as BT are pretty good at filtering spam but worth a try.

[Ancient Observer]

Thanks for your helpful comments.
Gertrude
The most likely culprit is McAfee. I'll experiment with that.
Opfix,
the BT spamfilter is good, in my experience. However, I do go to the website routinely to check for wrongly trapped mail.
If I took up all the (spam) offers for extended private parts, my inside leg of 33" would not be enough...............
Para - Thanks for your ideas. I've looked at that site. I'll go back when I've got a bit more time.

[Capetonian]

Have you done an ADSL line speed test? It might be that your line speed has been reduced and it is more noticeable when you use OE than at other times.

[Saab Dastard]

Do you have folders other than Inbox & Sent?

There is a hard limit for the size of these particular folders, and "unpredictable" behaviour can occur when at or near the limit (2GB IIRC).

Folders inside Inbox DO count against this limit.

SD

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Oh, there was one other problem I had years ago with OE taking minutes to start up. Somehow the "protected storage" service had got turned off and OE spent a long time timing it out. The symptoms of this one are that you double click on the OE icon (or whatever) and nothing at all appears on the screen for minutes. (I had to use the debugger on this one to get to the bottom of it, all in binary of course as I don't have the sources; it took hours.)

If OE's window opens up as usual but you just can't do anything with it for ages then my money's on McAfee.

[Ancient Observer]

Thanks all,

Gertrude - it starts quickly enough, it just takes ages to get to the Inbox, so I'll take a look at McAfee.
Saab, - I do keep lots of e-mail folders on my machine, but due to an attack by "man in the whatever (browser)" some time ago, I had them all wiped. Thus I'm currently well below that limit. However, your comment does remind me to clear out the unnecessary..................e-mailed scans and movies that I no longer need.
Capetonian - I've tried that, and since I had a major problem with BT that they eventually resolved (after letter to CEO as calls to India did sfa) I've had a healthy 6+ mbps.

[onetrack]

OE is regarded as utterly obsolete by most techs due to the inbox limitations as SD indicated. I find that my OE is requesting to compact OE files more often than I'd like it to.

However, I find that deleting unnecessary emails (advertising, news, mates jokes, etc) every few days from the inbox, and creating additional folders occasionally to store emails you feel the need to keep, helps keep the inbox file size down.

At risk of repeating myself and sounding like an ad... by far the greatest gift to OE users, is Mailwasher (Mailwasher.net).
Mailwasher lets you preview all your incoming mail, delete what you don't want, or are suspicious of, and even bounce garbage back to spammers (very satisfying feeling, that... :) )

I'd suggest that your inbox is getting close to its file limit, and maybe Macafee is part of the problem. I ditched the everyday anti-virus programs such as Norton and others that are so invasive, and deathly to download speeds... and I now use Online Armor, which is far less invasive.

[Mike-Bracknell]

There is a hard limit for the size of these particular folders, and "unpredictable" behaviour can occur when at or near the limit (2GB IIRC).

This was the case for PSTs and .DBX files until post 2003 where Outlook gained a different database structure for it's PSTs. IIRC the .DBX limit wasn't fixed though. However, it is still good practice not to exceed 1.8Gb in a PST whatever the case.

Background reading:
The .pst file has a different format and folder size limit in Outlook 2007 and in Outlook 2003 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830336)
Information about the maximum file size of the .dbx files that are used by Outlook Express (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/903095)

[Gertrude the Wombat]

OE is regarded as utterly obsolete by most techs
True, but the trouble is there's no replacement.

Not one that meets one's reasonable criteria, including, just to pick a couple of examples, being able to import decades of OE messages and having an integrated news client.

[Mike-Bracknell]

True, but the trouble is there's no replacement.

Not one that meets one's reasonable criteria, including, just to pick a couple of examples, being able to import decades of OE messages and having an integrated news client.

You mean '...other than Thunderbird'? or do you have other reasons for that?

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Don't recall the exact reasons why all the alternatives didn't meet all my requirements (not all of which I listed), but Thunderbird was certainly in the list of failures. All according to advice from other people, I haven't actually tried any of the alternatives ... because in all cases the advice from users thereof made them non-starters.

Edited to add:

Mozilla Thunderturkey and its malcontents ? The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/13/thunderbird_and_woeful_email_mailbag/) is just one of the discussions.