As you will probably know by now I am fairly new to all this computer, email, internet malarky (unless you count programming in BASIC 20 years ago).
I have a HP Pavilion dv1066ea laptop with Windows XP, Outlook express 6, McAfee security suite 2005 and a wireless broadband connection with Wanadoo. My problem is, every time I switch on the computer I am informed of all the new email I have. The last total was 140. In actual fact however, I only had one. The others were just repeats of existing ones. they come with their original posting dates and slot into my inbox list just above the ones they are a copy of. They remain "unread" untill I look at them even though I've already veiwed the original. This is happening over and over again as I get more genuine email and as the list grows. I've scanned for viruses and checked settings but am totally baffled. I will shortly contact my ISP but until then can anyone please help?

Mr. Fisher, it's possible that you have set yoru outlook express to leave a copy of your email on the mail server and somehow redownloading the same email over and over.

In Outlook Express, go to Tools -> Accounts -> click on your mail account and select the Properties button. It should bring up a separate mail account properties mini-window. Look for the Advanced tab and then look for a check in the very bottom option "Leave a copy of messages on server."

There's a possibility that there is a check in that box, which means you are leaving mail that you read on your mail server. Normally once you download an email you want it deleted from your mail server, so uncheck that box.

If this does not apply to you, post here so that other possibilities can be looked at.

Hi Jin,
Please no more Mr Fisher, call me Tony.
I found the box you mention but it was already unchecked. One other thing which may be relevant is that I get automatic McAfee updates. Recently I got a spamkiller update. it's not the first one but I think the problem started around the same time.
Thanks for replying. Tony

Hi Tony.

You may want to try Mozilla Thunderbird...its a great free alternative to Outlook Express.

You can download it here: http://download.mozilla.org/?product=th ... lang=en-US

If I remember correctly, the first time you open it, it allows you to transfer all your emails and account details from outlook into it. This may prevent the problem from occuring, if it an outlook related problem.

Hope this helps!

Tony,
This might help...
http://www.iss.soton.ac.uk/infobytes/public/IB000632.html
Richard

I don't see a way to fix this issue. The mail client writes the number of messages to the registry key at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\UnreadMail. Outlook and Outlook Express have this issue of messing up the count when using rules or getting multiple copies of the same message.

If you have msn messenger and have a hotmail account, those messages are also added to that count.

Thanks again for assisting me. For the time being the problem seemed to have stopped though I don't understand why. If it stays that way obviously I'm not too worried. I contacted my ISP and They told me to check the incoming mail setup. This is where I get confused. I originally set it to POP.Wanadoo.co.uk which I know is correct but it later changes to 127,0,0,1 on it's own. A friend of mine said this was normal and to do with my security software but my ISP told me to change it back. I did this and it seemed to work. Now however it has changed back to 127,0,0,1 as I knew it would but this time my problem hasn't (so far) come back!?! I can only think my ISP did something at his end.
To reply to the advice. I only want to change from Outlook express as a last resort but acknowledge there are alternatives. And to Richard, I did a search for pop3uidl.dbx but nothing came up.

It's probably the security scanner that's resetting it to 127.0.0.1 (which means to the computer "me"). So your e-mail client contacts your computer to fetch the e-mail (which is the security program) which goes off to your ISP to get the e-mail and it's scanned before being given back to you.

So if you have a problem, it might be with the security scanner.