Resolved OE wants to free up disk space

First off... I do not use Outlook (or IE), nor do I want too. I use Tbird exclusively.

Tbird is set as default email. I am posting in this forum because it seems to be an OE problem that suddenly started for no appearant reason.

I cold IPL every morning. Suddenly since about 2 weeks ago, I get the following message... "To free up disk space Outlook Express can compact messages. This may take a few minutes." [OK] [Cancel]
I hit cancel everytime.

Since I do not use nor load OE I don't see how any messages have accumulated. Process Explorer does not show OE as loaded.

So now I'm thinking it may be a trojan that AVAST cannot see, or is it really a vestige of OE loaded via MS XP Pro or an IE stub.

If so how do I get rid of it? It is not critical, but simply annoying.

 

I was concerned that if it were a trojan, OK=bye-bye data.

 

Yesterday I decided to open OE and see. My current PC was a replacement from my brother-in-law when my old one died, and this was in storage for the last 2 years. He used OE. I did not wipe his HD as he still had data he wanted to keep but not had the chance to recover.

Anyway, he had about 200 emails in his OE inbox that were totally obsolete, and I deleted them all. I also made sure there were no user data files in any of OE's folders.

This morning on power-up, same message.

I'm still hesitant to say "OK ".

 

Are you or has your brother in law used MSN Messenger? As I recall this required OE to be started even if you don't use it for email.

Since Messenger is usually started on windows start it could explain why you're getting this particular message on startup. FWIW there's no harm in selecting OK.

 

Yeah. My bnl used Messenger and I've tried to get rid of that as well.

I will try OK later this am as you all say it is safe.

 

If I am not mistaken, you can stop Messenger from loading on startup. I am not at a PC with messenger on it now. Try opening it up and go to Tools/Options and take the check out of Start when PC boots up (or something similar to that). You can also do it in OE for when you start OE. I know you don't use OE, but there is an option in there for it to start when OE is opened up also.

 

Pete, that link's concerns the messenger service and has nothing to do with MSN (useful information though).

 

Well I did it (a while ago) and simply forgot to say so here.
30 seconds later and problem solved.

And, thanks Steve for the reminder to "solved" this thread.