Well, to be precise, my identity and all my many emails seem to have gone–or at least I don’t know how to access them…MSN seems to have taken over my computer.
I open up OE, and basically, it’s as if it’s a whole new program; I have to start a whole new account.
Any idea where I can find my old OE account on my windows ME system?
Many thanks. This is most frustrating…
I’m assuming you ran Norton and that it didn’t find any viruses and that you’ve already restarted your computer?
Oh, and you may be infected with Spyware or Adware, which may or may not be caught by Norton anti-virus, but you’ll have to ask one of the pros here if that’s true, cuz I’m mostly guessing.
The morning after the disaster: Norton has apparently decided that things like my Photoshop 8, my screensavers, and my entire Outlook Express incoming and outgoing files were viruses. At any rate, they’re all gone. Lord knows what else, I haven’t gone through everything yet. A curse on their cubicles.
I’ve re-established my account on the OE, and I will dig around to find the PS8 box and discs.
Most, most annoying. I hate it when something supposedly benign changes my homepage, re-arranges all my bookmarks, etc., generally raises hell. And as for removing legitimate, licenced software…
Have you checked your quarantined files?
Have you tried using a system restore point?
If you can find where NAV has put the quarantined files, you should be able to get your mail back.
I don’t recall whether Norton moves them to a Quarantined files folder or if it renames them and leaves them in their existing folder. If it’s the latter, Outlook Express identity information is usually stored in C:\Documents and Settings<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities{long alpha numeric sting}\Microsoft\Outlook Express. Each identity has it’s own {long alpha numeric sting}, so if you have multiples under the identity folder, check the Outlook Express folder under each one. If you do have multiple string folders, change the view to details and check the size of the files in there. If one set is significantly larger than the others, then that’s most likely where your email is. If they have the extension .dbx, then go File, Import, Message, OE6, store directory option, and point is to the folder that you found those files in. If the file extension is something else, NAV may have renamed them. Just rename them back so they have .dbx extensions and import them.
If you cant find the dbx files in the above folder, Norton may have moved them to a quarantined files folder. You will need to find the location of this folder and find your files inside that. You should be able to find this location somewhere in the options for NAV. Outlook Express creates a dbx file for each new folder you create. It starts off with Drafts.dbx, Folders.dbx, Inbox.dbx, and Offline.dbx (Norton may have changed the .dbx part to something else, but the first part of the filename should still be the same). You will need to find at least these files, plus a file for each separate folder you created previously in Outlook Express. Once you have these, move them to an easy to find location in their own folder. Then import them using the method above.
Let me know if you want me to expand on any of that.
Of course, there is always the possibility that Norton may have deleted the files. Anti Virus programs usually keep activity logs, so you might be able to find out exactly what it has done.
Spyware and adware will change your homepage. That isn’t Norton. If Norton doesn’t have Spyware removal–and I don’t think it does–Spyware may still live on your computer.
Well. It’s been a long day of getting to the point where I can at least send/receive emails to my ebay customers and scan items/post pictures for auctions.
Had to dig out things like my Photoshop 8 discs and re-install, and when I couldn’t locate my software discs for things like my scanner, go online and download new drivers. What a pain. Several friends that I have since spoken to have told me of similar experiences.
Now that I have established the ability to continue my ebay activities (which are quite busy at this time of year), I am going to look for the “lost” info in the quarantine files. Thanks for the pointers! (Gah! “No System Restore Point Available,” indeed…I think I’m going to treat myself to a new system if I have a good month on ebay!)