Replies

That’s bizarre. Do the links in the WS newsletters from more than a week ago still work? I have checked the links in my recent WS newsletters (most recent being 2016-07-28), and all the links (blue text) work for me. That suggests that the problem is not in the emails themselves, but in your PC. But if something has changed in your PC, then those older links should also not work any more either. Have you changed something in your default browser? Have you tried a different browser? If you have an alternate browser, make it the default and see what happens. If you can copy the link text and paste it into your browser, and that works, it suggests a problem in the interface between Outlook and your browser, but that still doesn’t explain why the older WS newsletters work and the current ones don’t.

Have any other WS readers had this problem?

Seems to me that would get me to the illusive manual mail check. I wonder, then, why no one else in the great internet universe has posted that as a solution. Am I the only weirdo who wants to manually check mail?

Not at all. I ONLY check manually, having first run MailWasher to ensure that I will only receive what I want to receive. I think that “Disable Scheduled Send/Receive” is a global setting, applicable to all groups. I have two groups, one containing my email accounts (three of them), and another containing my wife’s (she has two). Normally in the “wife” group, the box “Include this group in send/receive” is unchecked, but if her laptop is off the air for some reason, I can just check that box and temporarily receive her emails on my PC. Then I have a Rule saying that any messages received through her accounts will be placed in a separate folder, which can be easily exported when her laptop is back. And a reciprocal arrangement on her laptop.

Not a fix, just a workaround, but do you see a link to “Click to see the newsletter online” at the start of the email? If so, do that and read in your browser, where all links should work. If that doesn’t work, enter windowssecrets.com/newsletter/ into your browser, from where you can select the one you want to read.

You go into the “Send/Receive” menu, then expand “Send/Receive Groups”. It will show you a list of groups, if you have more than one, but at the bottom you should see an option to “Disable Scheduled Send/Receive”. Then, to check for new mail manually, either press F9, or click on the icon at the very top left of the screen, above the word “File”.

Not being familiar with 8.1, but somewhere in the Control Panel you should see “internet Options”. If you can get in there, go to Advanced, and then Reset. That should reset the alleged security options which you altered earlier.

Were you following some IE security advice put out a while ago by Fred Langa? I implemented his recommendations, and they caused me grief, particularly with Outlook. If interested, see the thread “MS Outlook 2010 won’t display linked images (Windows 7 Pro x64)” in the Microsoft Outlook section.

I would agree about better browsers, but you should not uninstall IE (even if you can) because it is an integral part of the system, and must be kept up to date with monthly patches, even if you never use it for browsing.

Turning off auto updates in Windows 10: leave the Windows Update service disabled, except when you want to use it. I run Windows Update on demand, via the following batch file:

::
:: Start the Windows Update service.
::
sc config wuauserv start= auto
net start wuauserv
::
:: Now run Windows Update and wait.
::
“C:UtilitiesWindows Update 2.url”
pause
::
:: When finished, stop the service and disable it.
::
net stop wuauserv
sc config wuauserv start= disabled
::
pause
::

The batch file waits indefinitely at the first pause, while the windows update process runs. When that is finished, hit a key to resume the batch file and disable the service. The second pause is not really necessary, but lets you see what happened.

Windows Update in Win 10 is invoked via URL. The .url file referred to invokes “ms-settings:windowsupdate” , which opens the Windows Update page.

I have this batch file set up as a shortcut, so I can run it easily on demand, e.g on or after patch Tuesday. At other times, the WU service is disabled. The batch file needs to be run as administrator.

If it’s restarting after a system failure, then there should be an entry in the system event log. Have you looked in there?

I downloaded and ran the file msgames_win8_x64.msi from https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0BxgxYnZOV7L7aUxtLXNwbENZbm8&export=download , and then the games were back as before in Windows 10. The download was about 88 MB. There is also a 32 bit version at https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0BxgxYnZOV7L7eHZEOHBlakl0RVE&export=download .

Bruno, in my Outlook I can view the properties of an email thus: open the message, then in the ribbon which appears at the top of the message, click on the File tab. Then, under Info, you should see a button for Properties. Click on that, and you should see all the internet headers including where the message originated. It’s much the same as in older versions of Outlook.

I don’t quite understand your references to “cloud”. My Office programs are all installed locally, as are my Outlook PST files. I can run Outlook and look at emails when not connected to the Internet, although obviously I cannot receive or send. Office 365 does have some “cloud” features, but I don’t use them.

In the “View” drop-down menu, there is an item “Filters”. This allows you to set what files PowerDesk will display. Under “Show only the Following Files”, I have it set to *.*, meaning show all files of all types. Possibly you had it set to something else? There are some other options in there as well, worth looking at.

Do you intend to install Windows 10? Here’s a tale: A long time ago, when I was running XP, I discovered PowerDesk, installed version 6, and was very happy with it. Later on I moved to Windows 7, and decided to give PD version 8 a go. Again, very happy with it. Recently I took the plunge and installed Windows 10, only to be told that PD version 8 was incompatible – I was required to uninstall it before the installation would proceed. So I did that and Win 10 installed successfully. Once it was up and running, I tried to re-install PD 8 again, but Win 10 refused even to run the install file, saying it was incompatible. Fortunately I had kept the install file for PD 6, so I tried that, and to my surprise, it worked. So now I have PD version 6. running under Win 10, and as good as ever. So if you intend to go to Windows 10 and also want to stay with PowerDesk, see if you can find the installer for PD version 6. The one I have is called PowDesk6013_US.exe.

Version 6 does not have some of the features of version 8, but is perfectly functional.

Agreed about backups. Some backup tools (I use Macrium) allow you to copy individual files from an image backup, so depending on how recent the backup is ….

Another thing I use is just an XCOPY job which runs as a scheduled task every x minutes. The XCOPY switches are set so it only copies files from specified folders, and then only those files which have the Archive bit set. The archive bit gets turned off when the file is copied. My copies are to an external USB drive, but could be to anywhere. To make this completely unobtrusive, create a new user and run the scheduled task from that user, and set it to run even if the user is not logged on. That way, the XCOPY job runs automatically, and completely in the background.

Bruno, from your screenshot you do not have the “Support” option showing. Why not, I wonder? Possibly because I am running Office 365 and you are not? In mine, it sits between “Feedback” and “Exit”. If you are interested in following it up, it links to a URL called https://diagnostics.outlook.com/#/Download?env=Outlook , from where you can download a file called SetupOutlook.exe . It may be aimed at Office 365, but it does say “Fix Outlook and Office 365 problems”, so could be worth a try.

I have been to Stanthorpe a few times, never in winter but I have seen photos. Not a very friendly region towards brass monkeys at this time of year, but produces some very fine wines.

Therr is a suggestion that 30175-4 is caused by an anti-virus program blocking the installation. Did you see that? It may be an idea to temporarily disable your anti-virus while doing the install.

When you have a new email open, or a reply or forward, you should see an “Insert” tab at the top where you can select a file to insert. If that’s not there, or does nothing, then possibly your Outlook has been scrambled in some way. Two suggestions, but do these at your own risk and have a backup:

1. On the main Outlook screen, do File > Support > Support Tool. This will open a support page where you can download a recovery tool.

2. Close all Office programs, go to Control Panel > Programs and Features, find Office 2016 (or Office 365), highlight it, and click “Uninstall or change”. Be careful to select Change and not Uninstall. It will look for any problems, and hopefully fix them.

I don’t use personal stationery, but could that have something to do with it? Have you tried it without that? You say “When I first installed Outlook …..”, did the problem only start after you switched to personal stationery?

(I wish I was in Qld ….. only 9 degrees here today, rain and hail …..)