Taming the Infernal Machine #2

Killing Outlook Express

The purpose of this and the following articles is to provide a few (hopefully helpful) answers to a number of questions troubling the users of personal computers. Let it be made clear from the very beginning that I claim to be no qualified technician, nor comfortable enough with the more complex workings of the Infernal Machine so as to assume responsibility for any misunderstanding or erroneous use of the information given below.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The following article was written more than 10 years ago and concerns now obsolete versions of Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Office and Outlook Express, so most of the advice provided should be considered as inapplicable to modern systems and had better not be followed. It only remains published here for archival and/or "historical" purposes.

Another way to free disk space is to delete the Outlook Express folder, which contains all of your mail and also happens to be keeping an embarrassingly detailed record of your personal and/or professional correspondence. Be warned, however, that Outlook Express cannot be reborn from its ashes. If you would like to keep your e-mail but not have it sitting around on your hard drive, compact it using the relevant command from within Outlook Express to get rid of the practically undeleted Deleted Items (remember that even if you delete an e-mail and then empty the Deleted Items folder, you have in fact deleted nothing - the Deleted Items file in your OE folder still contains the supposedly erased data, taking up precious disk space) and save the whole OE folder on any removable storage media, like a Zip disk or writeable CD. Then you can safely delete it from your PC, as long as you are able to retrieve it anytime you feel like it.

Now if deleting the Outlook Express folder still sounds like an option, proceed in the following manner:

Restart your PC in DOS mode (Windows 2000, ME or XP users will need to reboot using a boot floppy or the Windows CD).

Type the following commands that appear in bold characters:

1. cd\windows\applic~1\identi~1\{[first 5 characters of relevant alphanumeric file]~1\micros~1
2. deltree/y outloo~1 (deletes the whole Outlook Express folder)

To exit DOS mode and return to Windows, type win or exit then press ENTER or Return, and you're done.

If still unsure on how to handle any or all of the above, click here for detailed and extremely constructive DOS tutorials. For any questions, suggestions, contributions or corrections, please contact me.

ATTENTION: The OE folder's location is not necessarily the same for all machines or operating systems. Run your Find File program and locate any files with the DBX extension. The folder you should be looking for is the one containing them (in some systems they might be located in a hidden folder, so make sure you've got Show All Files selected in your Folder Options before running the search). Remember to write down the MS-DOS name of each folder (you should see it if you highlight the folder, right-click and choose Properties) and type the complete address at the DOS prompt, beginning with the directory, e.g. cd\windows, and ending with the folder containing the one you want to delete. Once again, remember to separate them with an inverted slash (\) and NOT USE SPACES except where indicated, or you'll get a Too Many Parameters error message. Then type deltree/y followed by a space and the MS-DOS name of the folder you want to delete (e.g. outloo~1) and press ENTER or Return at the end of the command.