Email problem

[Irish Stu]

I recently purchased a new Dell Inspiron laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium.

The other day a spam email found it's way through my spam filter and is now sitting prettying in my Inbox... and I can't get rid of the fucker!! The sender displays as being from 'Liberty' but when you highlight it there is no sender, recipient or subject displayed. And in place of the actual content there is this message 'Message could not be displayed. Windows Mail encountered an unexpected problem while displaying this message. Check your computer for low memory or low disk space and try again.' Attempting to delete it results in a pop-up telling me 'An unknown error has occurred' or if I double-click it then attempt to delete it I get told 'This email could be deleted.' Nor can I drag it to another folder, all I get is the 'unknown error' message again.

Anyone have any ideas how I can rid myself of this cuckoo that won't vacate my Inbox?

Simon

[Ardbeg... innit]

Ahhh Simon, WELCOME TO VISTALAND!

BELIEVE IT OR NOT... Vista actually puts these things into a HIDDEN FOLDER WHERE YOU CANNOT TOUCH THEM!

The only way around this that I have found is third party anti-spam software that intercepts the email before it gets to the Microsoft email software.

EVEN IF you can dig down 20 levels and find the folder, you still CANNOT DELETE the offending file.

G

[Irish Stu]

bornagaindruid said:

BELIEVE IT OR NOT... Vista actually puts these things into a HIDDEN FOLDER WHERE YOU CANNOT TOUCH THEM!

THE BASTARDS!!

Simon

[Chicago Jake]

Simon, I don't know the immediate solution to your problem, but a longer-term solution might be a third-party email client like Thunderbird or Eudora.

[Ardbeg... innit]

Jake is right, go with one of the alternative email packages, I have used both Tbird and Eudora, I prefer Eudora because I can open several email folders in one window, but it is essentially a dead platform.

Microsoft's philosophy on this is understandable, and even reasonable up to a point. An email with a virus or trojan is packed away with so much security around it that nothing can touch it. BUT, frankly, I would rather have that sucker wiped off my disk completely. Sooner or later someone will create a virus that will exploit that 'feature' then how the hell do you rid the offending file without doing a complete reformat and reinstallation (WHICH BTW in my case would NOT be Vista)

[♥ COVID-19♥]

If the mail server you connect to supports a Webmail option, a local download of the mail wouldn't be an issue; it would just reside in your Inbox *on the server*, in which case, I'm sure you could probably delete it from there.

[Irish Stu]

Thanks for the thoughts. This issue is REALLY pissing me off. Since I bought this new laptop I've been very strict with my 'housekeeping' by deleting emails from my Inbox and Sent box daily, and moving emails I want to keep into folders rather than having them languishing in my Inbox for months on end. So now I have this rogue spam email sitting there goading me every time I open Outlook Express and it's infuriating me. I'm going to stick with OE for the time being because I like it, but if any more of these cocksuckers decide to descend on my computer to further torment me then I'll have to seriously consider using another programme.

Simon