Continuing Problems with TBird 3

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I am using Win XP Pro SP 3.

I’ve been experiencing various problems with TBird 3 for several months and have been on the Mozilla fora finding many people having the same problems. I posted here a couple of weeks ago and got a bit of help but the “fix” has faded. Basically, after a period, I cannot delete in the Inbox or elsewhere. Often, Trash has many duplicates of what I have tried to delete but the e-mails remain in both the Inbox and Trash.

Similarly, sometimes I can move/drag files to other folders for storage but often get a message saying another operation is using the folder. Sometimes this goes on for sometime/permanently and other times only a few minutes. Sometimes restarting TBird helps, mostly not. Sometimes, clearing the cache and compacting helps and sometimes not. Often I have to leave TBird closed for a half-hour or so and do something else.

When I compact the Inbox, all the default column headings reappear and e-mail is sorted earliest to most recent. If I compact all folders but am not in Inbox, it remains with my choices. I’ve removed all but a few add-ons and increased my cache size to 300mB but this does not help. I’ve completely uninstalled TBird and cleaned out all references in my registry, then re-installed it. It then works for much longer but eventually it reverts to the problematic mode. As I said, there are many users with similar problems but the numbers are not large and no one from Mozilla answers many of the posts.

I am contemplating re-installing Windows XP totally. Does anyone recommend this or not? I am planning to migrate to Win 7 but the radical change in terminology and organization has made it difficult for me to become efficient in a short time. I have MS Office 2002 and could use Outlook 2002 but am worried about security and functionality, knowing Outlook has quirks also. Advice?

Thank you

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Peter, personally I’d wait till you upgrade to W7 its worth every cent (Canadian) then use Windows Live Mail. Further advice is always available & free.

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I have never had a problem with WLM. I am using it with Win 7 as well. WLM is available for XP as well. According to MS Windows Live Essentialsis available for XP. WLM is one component of Windows Live Essentials. You can install as many or as few compenents as you want. You can download it here.

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I have never had a problem with WLM. I am using it with Win 7 as well.

Well, that is very good, but how does it help Peter?
I can tell you all that I have not had any problems with Thunderbird 3, but that does not help either, sorry Peter.

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Thanks all,

As I said, no one at Mozilla or on their GetSatisfaction hosted fora has any answers for the small number of us who have stated our problems. Some of us have been waiting months for a response or even an acknowledgment or resolution. Thus I and others have been looking for other mail clients. But some have responded that WLM users have had problems also.

The above responses about using WLM seem to indicate there may be similar difficulties for some users of WLM as there are for TBird. I wonder if anything has to do with an “unused” but conflicting line or lines in the registry, thus my suggestion about “cleaning” it out and totally re-installing XP while I conduct dual-boot sessions to learn Win 7 or do research into differences via say, Tech Republic which seems to have a lot of helpful papers.

Don’t feel badly about “not helping” me because I am a self-taught computer user (considered a guru by some who feel intimidated by technology) and all I know is when there are problems and I have to solve them. This started with DOS 2 and progressed until I lost interest in the intricacies of the Win registry. [Why don’t Macs need a registry?] I’m still grappling with helping a couple of users attach themselves to the net through PPoE on ADSL lines about which I don’t want to know nothing and I am still building an upgrading refurbs.

Again, tnx all and I shall “try out” WLM although maybe I’d better re-install both Win XP and 7 just to be sure I have something I can use.

PH.

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Peter,

I do realize that the WLM suggestion does not address your T3 problem, but since I do not use T3 and do use WLM with NO problems, my suggestion was to make a possible switch to WLM. I use Win 7 on all my PCs. Got rid of XP and good riddance. I did not find the learning curve that bad. I am also totally self taught with windows, starting with 3.1 and now use Win 7 so I know where you are coming from. I am the family guru now. Can be a pain at times, esp. with my mom (79 and still going). I do not have experience with WLM on XP. That may be where people are having problems. WLM does work well with Win 7. I also use Live Photo Gallery and Live Movie Maker. Both nice apps as well. I do like the A La Carte method to choose what apps you want from Windows Live Essentials.

Good luck with your choice. cheers, Ted (this time of the day will be mug of java for me)

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“I am contemplating re-installing Windows XP totally. Does anyone recommend this or not? I am planning to migrate to Win 7 but the radical change in terminology and organization has made it difficult for me to become efficient in a short time. I have MS Office 2002 and could use Outlook 2002 but am worried about security and functionality, knowing Outlook has quirks also. Advice?”

There is a free program that will give Windows 7 almost the same menu structure as XP. I put it on my own computers and am quite happy with it.

http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/

P.S. I have been using Thunderbird for quite a while now. I did sample WLM and it did not do all I wanted that TB does. I do wish TB had a useful help file we could access, though.

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I too have had problems with T/Bird 3.0. Discarded!
Out of interest I downloaded and installed Eudora OSE, which is basically T/Bird with modifications.
This picked up all my T/Bird files without any problems, and although one must be patient sometimes with deleting large files, and waiting a bit for folder packing, it does not exhibit any of the sluggish behaviour.
Might help to give it a try, easy to run T/Bird against it with the same files for comparison.
http://www.eudora.com/

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