Real slow system/deleting items

My computer is extremly slow. You can hear it working. Someone told me that there was another place to delete emails(different than the regular delete button). I have had my computer about 2.5 years and never done that. Can someone tell me how and if that might help. I use Netscape for my email system. Thanks

 

Hi canton 1, and welcome!

Tell us a little more about your PC configuration, that will help answer your questions. Also, which Version of Communicator are you using.

You can delete mail by highlighting the headers and press Shift+Delete. Be warned, this method is final, and does not place the mail in your Trash folder. It is gone to the "Great Trash Folder in the Sky "!

This will have absolutely no effect on your computer's speed, however. Speed has to do with your system configuration.

Ramona

 

Hi Canton1,

Yes, please tell us a little more about your system as Ramona suggested... including what OS you're running and how much RAM you have.

Another way to sometimes get Netscape in line is to delete the .snm files associated with email... they're in your user profile>mail folder. Each mail folder you have in Messenger has 2 corresponding files in the mail folder, one with no extension and one which an .snm extension. These are summary files for the email with can become corrupted from time to time. I've found when looking at one of these files in a text editor that they often have bits of deleted messages in them.

You need to shut Netscape down... delete "only" the .snm files... never the ones with no extension. Then restart Netscape and Messenger, when you load your email folders the summary files are rebuilt.

Also, compressing the email folders in Messenger as a maintenance routine is a good thing to get into doing. You can do that from the file menu or by highlighting and right clicking on each folder separately and choosing to compress folder.

 

canton 1,

If you can hear your HD making a "coffee grinder" noise, then my guess is that the noise is related to your swap file. This is definitely a "Windows" related problem, and you may want to post on one of the Windows Forum, which relates to your OS version.

A ScanDisk and Defrag would be in order, and it could also indicate a need for more RAM.

Win386.swp is the swap file used by Windows 95 or Windows 98 to provide your system with virtual memory. When Windows runs out of physical RAM, it swaps the least recently used memory areas to disk and re-uses the freed RAM. If a program requests data that was swapped out, Windows swaps it back into RAM. This allows the system to function as if it had more memory than the installed physical RAM. Some programs use the swap file even when physical RAM is available.

And to add to Dreambird's suggestion on compressing your Mail folders. If you have Netscape 4.74 or above, Netscape will automatically expunge your Mail & Newsgroup folders on exit:

Choose Preferences from the Edit menu.
Open the Mail and Newsgroups category and then select Mail Servers.
Select the mail server you want and click Edit.
For POP servers, select the POP tab; for IMAP servers select the IMAP tab.
Check the box at "Clean up all folders on exit. "
Click OK, and then click OK again to confirm your changes.

Ramona