I also just want to call out a thanks to the hard work WC8 has put into this - I think sweetcicely put it really nicely. Cj - that's a really good point. I really do try, but I sometimes forget to append "I think that..." or "From my limited experience..." to the beginnings of my post, which I think is important in ensuring that the reader knows that any advice being given is a guess or at least from limited experience. Even if it's neither these two things, anyone not growing in my conditions should take any information I give with a grain of salt, and so that little "I'm not sure, but this is what I think" really serves as a nice reminder to the reader. Sometimes I see it as a liability waiver! Re the nature of people visiting the forum - with the invention of the internet, people tend to 'ask' more than research. It's gone from going to the library to checking out a book, to going to google and searching for a key word, to just posting questions on forums and waiting for answers. I think the welcome draft is fantastically detailed and has so much great advice and information, but as others have said, may not be efficient, keeping in mind the mentality of the people who come here asking for questions. Is it possible to have a single line at the top of the page in a very prominent place saying: "Thanks for visiting the forum! If you have some time before posting your question, please READ THIS" and link to the page you've drafted? That way people who do click on the link will expect to be presented with something they need to read - if they do read all of it, they'll be that much wiser and if they don't, then there's no hurt feelings since it's not the first thing that jumps into their face when they visit the site, so it's less....foreboding.

Time to go down, new message is posted. Claire

Absolutely - compact your messages and the notice vanishes. Open Outlook Express, click File at the top, click Folder, click Compact all folders. Prior to doing that you might clear out your inbox and sent folder of unwanted emails then empty the Deleted folder

Here's a possibility: If you go to microsoft.com and type in the search term "open dbx files" or go to this site http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/community/columns/filecorruption.mspx (same thing) and wade thru to near the bottom you will get this paragraph: In the unfortunate event you do not have a backup that contains the messages you need, it is possible to recover messages from a corrupt DBX file. Unfortunately there is no built-in recovery tool in Outlook Express to do this. There is, however, a very inexpensive third-party tool called DBXtract that could possibly recover these messages.. It was written by Steve Cochran, a Microsoft MVP for Outlook Express for many years. You can purchase and download DBXtract at Steve's OEHelp website.1 Also if you google "open dbx files" you will find the program described in the above paragraph, I think it was $27, and/or other similar programs. I didn't see any free. Guess it depends on the relative value of the lost info. ========================================================== Have you lost any further emails? Tried emailing yourself to check it out?