Constipated Outbox

Got a call from a lady who couldn't send any e-mail. Seems that there was a piece of it stuck in her outbox and, no matter how hard she tried, she could not delete it. Worse, because it was stuck there she couldn't send any other e-mail either. I should mention that she is using Windows Mail on a Vista machine.

When she tried to delete it she got an error message saying:

Windows Mail
An Unknown error has occurred

Then a task window came up indicating that it was deleting the messages but it would never finish.

Did a quick web search and discovered that "There is a glitch in Vista". Duh, which one? Fortunately there was also a link to a whole slew of "glitches" with Windows Mail, including one for:

"Problem One"
How to remove a Stuck Undeletable Message in Windows Mail.

And a link to the Windows update (KB941090) that fixes the problem

Applying the patch did the trick.

Case closed..... Sort of.

Unfortunately, the article not only supplied the "Cure" but also suggested the "Cause". Not being one to ever leave well enough alone I pushed on. Long and the short of it is that it appears that Windows Mail has problems with most if not all virus scanners and/or visa versa. According to the article, the AV e-mail scanning function should be disabled, for both incoming and outgoing mail.

I can't buy that. At least not without some good solid arguments. So, that, of course, is the basis for a whole other post in the Amgeek Files.