Switching Identities in IE 6, new developments

Greetings again.
I posted a few days ago with a problem with switching Identities in OE and have used the "workaround" involving "exit and log off identity ". This workaround now is not working. When I try this, the new identity will not open and OE will not open. I ran: sfc /scannow once and the program worked again for a while but today when the problem recurred "sfc /scannow" did not solve the issue. Now it is broken again and requires a restart after trying to switch identities. I am hoping that someone here might be able to offer some tech advice. I am out of ideas. Looking forward to hearing from you and grateful thanks for any help. And, in case someone is checking, I may be the one depriving some village of an idiot.

 

Go to Start\Run type in Regedit and press Enter.
Browse to this key.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities
This is where it can get slightly complicated. Under that Key there will be a Key named {bunchoflettersandnumbers}, click on that Key [folder]. Over in the right there will be a Value named 'User Id' with a {bunchoflettersandnumbers} as it's Value Data. This Value Data must match what is in the Key name. In other words, what is on the left, must be on the right.
If the Key is named {8EE42D80-580C-11D8-9B18-97064DB04966}, the Value Data of the Value "User ID" must be {8EE42D80-580C-11D8-9B18-97064DB04966}.
Change what is on the right to match what is on the left.

 

Thank you for your prompt reply. I navigated with fear and anxiety to the registry as you instructed. I have always been very respectful of the registry. I found the "Identities" folder as directed and found three Identities. This fits since I have two identities and the main identit9 in Outlook Express and they seemed to be labeled correctly. I carefully checked the string of numbers you mentioned and found them to be identical throughout from left to right. Each of the three had a unique string of numbers, but they were identical from left to right. I think we will need to look into this some more since there seems to be no problem here. Thanks again.

 

Any error messages? Have you tried repairing? Sorry, never saw your other post.

 

Is there some reason you have to use two different identities? If not, you could delete the new identity you created and just create another account for the new email address in your original identity. You would then be able to access them both without the hassle of having to change identities. Works for me.

 

Zander thanks for your very helpful post. The reason I was using (note the past tense) is that I thought I had to do that since I was using two different email addresses, each with a different ISP. I just took your advice, deleted the new identity and created a new account with the old identity. I thought I had looked over Outlook Express and pretty well understood, but apparently I missed that functionality of Outlook Express. I can now select the account from which I need to read or send email. There is a drop down box on the "create mail" window that lets me choose the account and on the "tools" menu to receive both accounts show up. This has been a good experience and it looks as if it will work for me, too. Thanks.

 

I guess I should have jumped in with the suggestion earlier but I thought maybe there was something I was missing. I finally decided it couldn't hurt to suggest it. If you had two different people using the same OE and each wanted their email account separate from the other's, then two identities would be the way to go. In your case it sounded as though there was no need for this though. Glad to hear this worked out for you.