PC help.....hotmail doing wierd stuff.

[emmatmg]

Under my user name on the front screen (you know the one where all the user names are, can think of the technical term) it say I have 17 new mail messages!!

17???

I log on to hotmail and there's nothing there, all the folders are empty as I hardly ever use it.

Why is it doing this? what is it? how do I delete them if theres nothing in my account?

I'm not technically minded by any stretch of the imagination so I really hope it's something simple.

Can you help me?

Thanks.

Not sure what you mean by the front screen. You say it tells you 17 messages and then you log on - but you shouldn't be able to see how many messages you have until after you log on, surely?

Sorry, not much help I know - but if you could clarify 'front screen', maybe put a link here so I can see which one you mean.

Sorry, I thought ithat would cause a bit of head scratching.

When i turn the PC on the first screen has all our names, ie, Me, DH ds1 ds2 and Ds1 with a little picture next to it.

It says it there, under my name, 17 unread mail messages. It's not unusual to see a message under my name but it normally say 1 or 2 messages.

Hope thats abit clearer.....probabaly not though

You mean the user screan on xp?

Do you only have your hotmail e-mail address? These are e-mails you have already downloaded but not yet read.

Hope that helps other than that Im stuck 2!

Right, now I've got you. You mean on the XP log on screen. Do you have broadband always connected or are you on dial-up? If dial up then it is the number of emails it registered you as having the last time you were online and haven't read, if broadband then it may be continually monitoring your inbox.

Normally it reads your default email - Outlook Express or whichever program you have nominated as your default. Or if you have a dedicated email program with your ISP (if on AOL for example) then it will be that in-box. Unlikely to be hotmail if you use it so rarely. What is your normal email program?

The 17 messages belong to the last email ID you logged onto. They're not necessarily yours! Also, I think they can be deleted ones that still show as unread in Outlook Express.

Yes, broadband pretty much always on. we're with telewest.

My normal Email account is a mircosoft outlook one and it never lists unread meassages on the front screen, only the Hotmail one does that rarely gets used .

When i switched the Pc off last night there wasn't a message but this morning it was there.

weird!

Daft question but have you checked the outlook account? If nothing obvious in the inbox check the Junk or Bulk folder. It sounds possible that you have a load of spam mails in there.

Soupy, you could have cracked it. My neice was here yesterday and logged on to her hotmail account through my log in.

That's probably it, isn't it?

Are you sure it's the hotmail one? Mine doesn't tell me which one it is. Took me ages to track down a stray unread message once.

It could be. I hate that feature actually. I just ignore it now.

It's only ever done it for hotmail messages I assume it's them.

God, aren't PC's clever!

Sometimes they are to clever for their own good!

My mates ds somehow managed to give me a virus by registering for something and giving them access to his hotmail address book!

Right, have just spoken to my neice and it's defo this. But now say 20 messages as I had to log on as her to try and log her off properly.

Errrrr, short of reading all her emails and deleting them is there anything I can do now. I suppose I'll just have to wait for her to do it all her end now.

Ours does this as well, pain in teh arse. Shows all teh unread messages of the last person who logged on and sometimes mine. If you have broadband, isn't your pc on all the time anyway, regardless of whether you switch it off or not? Hence change in message this am

Simply log on as you, I think!!

Although it should therefore have cleared earlier when you saw you had none...

Does this help?

"The hyperlink is displayed only if you have an e-mail client that is capable of updating the Welcome screen running on your computer. Currently, there are only two programs that support this feature: Microsoft Outlook Express and Microsoft Windows Messenger."

So, you have to access your emails via Outlook Express in order to clear it. I think.

Haven't read other messages but XP makes it up as far as I can see - the number of messages against my name bears no relation to what I have on AOL or hotmail - I ignore it!

"You cannot disable this feature in the user interface, nor can you configure the Welcome screen to populate the unread message count from only a particular e-mail program."

pmsl. Oh, that's so helpful! wtf were Microsoft thinking of??

You can disable it - if you are confident enough in what you are doing to makes some alterations to the registry:

Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe).
Navigate to the HKEYCURRENTUSER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\UnreadMail subkey.
Double-click MessageExpiryDays (or create a new value of type DWORD if MessageExpiryDays doesn't exist), set the value to 0, then click OK.

You may have to repeat the above steps for multiple email addresses if listed or for multiple users on the PC.

Close the registry editor.

Shout if you want that translating into English!

Save the registry before fiddling though

The link I gave did give you a way to work round it, also involving editing the registry. Had step by step instructions too.

Ok, am just picking my self up off the floor......my brain really can't manage all that. Actually let me re-phrased that... any of that!

I think I'll just hope the fairies come and take it away.