Win98 registry change lost an OE6 "Identity."

I'm running Win98SE and Outlook Express 6. Three or four days ago, my machine went down and when I rebooted it said something like "you have registry problems, your registry is being replaced by a previous good registry," not those exact words but that meaning. Then the machine came on up and I was at my desktop and everything seemed to work. Although the start page when I used Internet Explorer was an old start page I hadn't had for a long time.

But my problem is that in OE6 I had two "identities." One was "Art Coop," which used my email address of usebirchATswbellDOTnet. The other was "VoiceTech," which also used my usebirchATswbellDOTnet email address. Now OE6 only shows my Art Coop identity. Most of my emails are there, a couple of thousand. But my VoiceTech emails are not, my VoiceTech identity is gone. I'm guessing since my machine reverted to an older "good" registry, that registry was one that existed before I added my VoiceTech identity in OE6. I tried to fix the problem by making another VoiceTech identity, but all I got was one message, a standard "welcome to Outlook Express" email.

What can I do to get my VoiceTech identity emails back? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

You could try importing the VoiceTech email folders into the new identity. When logged on as the new identity, at the toolbar go to File\Import\Messages.
You may want to check if Scanregw is running at startup, your backup registry should have been more recent, as a backup is created once each day the machine is turned on.

 

Windows was only doing its' job as it is supposed to. It replaced the Registry with what IT THOUGHT WAS as good one. If that so called good one did not contain all of the current info, that may be a user problem.

Windows 98SE uses the RB00X.CAB files in the C:\Windows\Sysbckup folder to preform this task. And apparently the one it picked to use did not contain the info that was lost.

One way HELP prevent this is to;

1-Make sure that SCANREGW is loading at startup. ( if the rb00x.cab files are there, it is running. )
2-Make sure all things ( such as the E-mail in question ) are working properly.
3-Once you are sure that all is well go to the C:\Windows\Sysbckup folder and DELETE ALL RB00X.CAB files/ Then the restart Windows. It will make a new backup of the CURRENT Registry.

DO NOT just take it for granted that Windows will do this. Do a MANUAL/VISUAL check to make sure it has been done.

At this time you will more than likely see some RB00X.BAD ( or some oddball names, so DELETE them too.

Actully I have found that the above procedure is a good idea to use ANYTIME that any adiditons, removals or changes are made.

It my not 100% prevent problems. But it will 95%.

Bottom line. Keep the backups current. Not only the RB00X.CAB files but any other backups you may have.

BillyBob

 

That is correct. But it still means nothing. If there exists more than one RB00X.cab file Windows will still pick the one that IT THINKS IS BEST

( experience speaking )

That is why I recommend that the user check out and keep control of them.

Also you are correct about the fact that a backup is made every day when the machine is started. But if the machine is NOT restarted once per day the backups are not made.

BilyBob

 

That is incorrect.

It should read;

But if the machine or at least Windows is NOT restarted once per day the backups are not made.

BillyBob