Eudora Problem in Vista
Tom Hall
I've only had this computer a few days, and discovered for the first time
today that I cannot paste anything into the body of a message.
I can paste text into any field in the header, but if the cursor is in the
body and I press Ctrl-V, nothing happens. If I use the Edit menu and select
the Paste or Paste Special option, Eudora crashes. All I get from Vista is
that Eudora has crashed and that I will be notified if Windows finds a
solution (!)
When I first installed Eudora on this machine, it complained when I tried
to make it the default mail program that it couldn't write to the registry.
Every time I ran Forte Agent (which I'm using now to write this message),
it would assert itself as the default mail client. I finally found a way to
turn this off, and now Eudora seems happy as my default mail client.
As a footnote to this, in the process of researching the problem I
discovered that there is apparently no clipboard viewer in Vista (!). What
were they thinking...?
For the time being if I want to write email that involves pasting text, I
have to use Agent. I have no problems pasting text anywhere in an Agent
message.
Tom
--
remove .spoo to reply by email
Jackson
wrote:
>For the time being if I want to write email that involves pasting text, IV
>have to use Agent. I have no problems pasting text anywhere in an Agent
>message.
>
>
>Tom
Try setting the compatability to Windows 2000. That works on XP, at
least for me. Perhaps it (or another version: 98, 98se etc)will work
on Vista.
On XP, you can set compatability on the shortcut.
Tom Hall
>>For the time being if I want to write email that involves pasting text, IV
>>have to use Agent. I have no problems pasting text anywhere in an Agent
>>message.
>>
>>
>>Tom
>
>Try setting the compatability to Windows 2000. That works on XP, at
>least for me. Perhaps it (or another version: 98, 98se etc)will work
>on Vista.
>On XP, you can set compatability on the shortcut.
I tried that, and it didn't work. I still can't paste text into the body of
a Eudora message.
FWIW, I've installed Thunderbird 2.0 and imported all my Eudora folders. It
does not have the same problem.
John H Meyers
Some people have reported this problem even under Windows XP;
most people have never had this problem, even under Vista.
Since Eudora remains always the same, and everything else varies,
it thus seems likely to have been caused by something added to Windows.
Try "paste special," and see whether there is any mode of pasting
which does work, particularly into a plaintext outgoing message.
One can always also repeat the installation of Eudora,
to refresh new copies of the program files
(this never touches user data).
--
Frank
other problems, mainly ability to only select two addresses at a time
and slowness in typing and made the TB switch myself over a year ago.
Slight differences but no problems so I'm glad I made the switch.
John H Meyers
> I did not have problem in Eudora but with Vista still could not overcome
> other problems, mainly ability to only select two addresses at a time
> [from the address book]...
A theory of how Vista broke "multiple selection," which was
a standard Windows function that had always before worked one way,
but was then changed by Microsoft, with several different strategies
for working around Microsoft's change (which affected everyone using
the underlying Windows function, not just Eudora):
"Selecting multiple nicknames in Vista"
http://eudorabb.qualcomm.com/showthread.php?t=13995
Message #5 of that thread, in particular:
"Possible explanation, several solutions"
http://eudorabb.qualcomm.com/showpost.php?p=41099
Trading in Eudora for Thunderbird strikes me like
trading in solid silver dining ware for stainless steel
(after all, the latter is now tarnish-free, without ever needing polishing :)
The gain or loss is perceived according to one's experience,
and how fully one was or was not taking advantage
of all that had been available.
--
Tom Hall
<jhme...@nomail.invalid> wrote:
>Some people have reported this problem even under Windows XP;
>most people have never had this problem, even under Vista.
>
>Since Eudora remains always the same, and everything else varies,
>it thus seems likely to have been caused by something added to Windows.
>
>Try "paste special," and see whether there is any mode of pasting
>which does work, particularly into a plaintext outgoing message.
"paste special" doesn't work either - Eudora crashes.
>One can always also repeat the installation of Eudora,
>to refresh new copies of the program files
>(this never touches user data).
I'll try this the next time I feel like fooling around with Eudora again.
In the meantime, I've got my hands full with Vista issues... :-)
Frank
slow down problem in typing was a killer. I posted the question here
and followed all suggestions to no avail. Having used Eudora for over a
dozen years and purchased three upgrades, I hated to leave it. Now, no
regrets.
John H Meyers
> I could have lived with the address selection problem
> but the slow down problem in typing was a killer.
Although everyone turns out to be affected by the "multiple selection issue,"
whose cause is universal, and seems to be understood,
most people do not have any slow typing problem,
which puts that problem in a category of things that are likely due to
something specific to the individual computer system,
and not to Eudora in particular, nor attributable just to Vista.
In such cases, the detective work necessary to track down the actual cause
(and often cure) may dissuade users from persevering to locate that cause,
and offers switching to some other client as a simple way to skip that effort.
I often suggest that individuals try to locate competent local technicians
to check out their computers, but no doubt such competent technicians
charge by the hour, and can not guarantee solution,
so merely taking any free alternative has its attractive points.
I also see a number of people who initially leapt in that direction
coming back, however, due to a longer term perspective
on the deeper values (or lack thereof) between the alternatives.
Such personal alternatives and expediencies pervade many things
in life involving decisions of which courses to take,
and become highly personal decisions,
which can't be packaged or recommended to suit everyone in the same way.
"To each his own"
--
John H Meyers
"Fixed slow display of large HTML messages, which was introduced in 6.2"
[release notes for 6.2.1]
"Typing when message contains a big picture is now much faster."
[release notes for 7.0]
"Typing is delayed inside message"
http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/kb/1702hq.html
"Spell Catcher causes slow typing (Mac)" [Macintosh]
http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/kb/1590hq.html
Could it be a warning that one might have a "keystroke logger"
(perhaps malware) intercepting everything? Or a "keyboard helper"
application? A graphics driver? (that is, the time might be spent
in the display, rather than in the typing).
This seems reminiscent of "What is causing my low mileage" for cars.
Is it the gasoline? A fuel injector? Fuel pump? A leaking tank?
Bad timing adjustment? Spark plugs? Spark plug wires? Engine computer?
Oh well, replacing the car will probably fix it :)
--
Frank
I had tried all these things. Maybe you had even supplied the
suggestions. It was over a year ago.
As with your car analogy, sometimes car is ready for the dump.
Personally I keep cars a long time but when repair cost exceeds book
value, I replace it. In the case of Eudora, it's still sitting out in
the garage of my desktop but no longer being driven ;)
John H Meyers
> As with your car analogy, sometimes car is ready for the dump.
> Personally I keep cars a long time but when repair cost exceeds book
> value, I replace it. In the case of Eudora, it's still sitting out in
> the garage of my desktop but no longer being driven ;)
The nicer thing about software is that there is no "wear."
I know some people who are still using Eudora version 3 on new computers,
and it is working 100% perfectly, just as it always did to begin with.
The thing which is turning some computers into a "dump"
is most often some brand new software,
while older, well made software like Eudora
is built like a tank, and continues to perform as well as ever,
except only where it is clobbered by some new malfunctioning element
(like the case of Zone Alarm, a couple of years ago,
which interfered with the updating of "last modified" time stamps
on TOC files, which wrecked Eudora for about a week,
until ZA fixed the fundamental bug they had introduced into Windows).
If one is resigned to accepting the beating done to the road
by trucks that one is driving behind, then of course
one may need to drive something else cheaper meanwhile,
and mothball one's luxury car, for the time being.
--
Frank
Adobe Acrobat. Going through the growth of new Windows versions, Adobe
was happy to sell me their latest compatible version upgrades. They
would also offer some free fixes but upgrading by that route could be
agonizing. But, unless I am mistaken, Eudora is frozen in time with no
new versions or updates available. I understand a guy in our area has a
Stanley Steamer. He starts it up maybe once a year and drives around
his yard but I don't think it goes anywhere else ;)
John H Meyers
> Eudora is frozen in time with no new versions or updates available.
So is the telephone which my parents were using when I was born,
well over 50 years ago, but it can be plugged into any home phone line today,
and will still work the same -- so will any radio of that day,
still receive all of today's AM radio stations,
even though the demise of radio was long ago predicted.
In short, the statement above is both true and immaterial;
all that matters is whether it handles everything one needs
(which thus far it does), and whether, if and when the time comes
when it ever doesn't, would it be better to have waited until that time
for the best replacement then available, or to have run scared
and replaced it way earlier, when there was actually no need at all,
and perhaps with something which itself will by then need replacing?
If you are a proponent of pre-emptive replacement,
I advise getting a heart transplant
(or artificial heart) today, because after all,
someday it might stop beating, and until you replace it,
it's frozen as of the body you now have.
The main problems with Windows Eudora on Vista come from
improper installation, and are rather easily taken care of
by anyone who will follow instructions which actually
have been available for the past eight years, namely:
"Installing Eudora on Windows 2000/XP" (and later)
http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/kb/2128hq.html
As to email, no standards exist which aren't already
handled completely by Eudora, except for UTF-8 character encoding,
which has been absent all the while anyway, and is nothing new.
As I said, Eudora version 3 has been frozen many years longer
than Eudora version 7, yet is still working fine for certain of my friends;
so is every version of WinZip ever made, and a very great assortment
of other software which I (and so many other people) use every day.
In addition, to many people, Eudora is the top of the line in its class,
and for most of us it would be a painful loss to downgrade to the alternatives,
merely upon the irrelevance of the original statement above.
The notion that only something new can remain perfectly usable
is pure propaganda, and has no basis in the reality of long-term experience,
particularly in regard to something purely digital, which can never wear out.
More examples of meaningless propaganda:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt
--
Tom Hall
wrote:
>I'll try this the next time I feel like fooling around with Eudora again.
>In the meantime, I've got my hands full with Vista issues... :-)
I just turned off Vista's UAC and guess what - the Eudora problem I was
having is gone - so I'm back to using Eudora.
John H Meyers
> I just turned off Vista's UAC and guess what - the problem I was having
> [can't paste, even running Eudora with Win2K "compatibility" mode]
> is gone - so I'm back to using Eudora.
In that case, it's a Vista issue, so you might get help
in a Windows Vista newsgroup or forum;
otherwise you can just run all your apps with reduced security.
Try searching with Google for: vista can't paste
You will find numerous similar complaints,
about numerous other applications.
Here's a claimed explanation, from a Microsoft "MVP"
("Most Valuable Professional," a designation awarded by Microsoft)
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-general/51182-cannot-cut-paste-internet-site-using-vista.html#post888315
Quoting from that post, dated 11-17-2008:
"That usually is an out of memory issue.
Vista is a memory hog, and still is terrible at releasing it --
no matter how much ram you have installed,
you will eventually run low."
"No matter how much you tweak it and slim it down, it still is a pig."
"Initially you'll notice you can't paste from the web...
but still can paste in other applications like Notepad...
eventually you won't be able to copy paste anything in any app."
"If you're in a bind / can't reboot or log off then...
close as many large running apps as you can,
close non-essential taskbar processes...
btw just the simple minimizing to tray of a Mozilla browser
can give you back enough memory space to regain copy/paste ability."
"Good Luck."
[End of quote]
Microsoft MVP program:
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
One more example of the Vista "paste problem," out of many pages full of them:
http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/158620-cant-copy-paste.html
Thank you, Tom Hall for posting your experience,
which has led to a lively discussion :)
--
John H Meyers
Initial post:
> Using Eudora 7.1.0.9 in 64-bit Vista Home Premium.
> I've only had this computer a few days, and discovered for the first time,
> today, that I cannot paste anything into the body of a message.
Last post:
> I just turned off Vista's UAC and guess what -
> the Eudora problem I was having is gone.
Gee, I never thought to ask -- how did you install (or transfer) Eudora
to this new computer?
In "Help" | "About Eudora"
are the "Data" and "Application" paths the same?
That would be a "no-no" for Vista; see:
"Installing Eudora on Windows 2000/XP" (and later)
http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/kb/2128hq.html
The installer's original defaults are the way to go
("program files" for programs,
"user app data" for mail and settings, etc.)
The set of problems caused by improper installation
is, however, usually different than about "pasting."
Oh, well, the pandemic "Vista virus" is supposed to be fought off
by some new vaccine called "Windows 7" -- let's hope
that we don't have to wait for its SP3 before it finally works :)
--
Tony Toews [MVP]
>
>In "Help" | "About Eudora"
>are the "Data" and "Application" paths the same?
>
>That would be a "no-no" for Vista; see:
>
>"Installing Eudora on Windows 2000/XP" (and later)
>http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/kb/2128hq.html
>
>The installer's original defaults are the way to go
>("program files" for programs,
>"user app data" for mail and settings, etc.)
>
>The set of problems caused by improper installation
>is, however, usually different than about "pasting."
>
>Oh, well, the pandemic "Vista virus" is supposed to be fought off
>by some new vaccine called "Windows 7" -- let's hope
>that we don't have to wait for its SP3 before it finally works :)
IMNSHO a few developers are still ignoring the Windows suggested locations which have
been around since at least Windows 2000. Windows Vista and 7 are doing their best
to compensate for the devs idiocy. Program files and Windows System are off limits
unless you are installing software.
Also devs should be doing their work as regular users and not admins. They would then
find these kinds of problems a lot sooner. Before such problems even made it to the
testers let alone the general public.
Now granted Eudora is no longer being developed.
Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/
John H Meyers
[breaking into a thread that was originally about another issue :]
> IMNSHO a few developers are still ignoring the Windows suggested locations
> [programs vs. data] which have been around since at least Windows 2000.
It is not the Eudora developers, but the Eudora users (particularly those
who have been such long time users that they may go back to Windows 95
or even Windows 3) who make the ultimate decisions, and who, in many cases,
do not even use (or have) the installer for their version,
but just copy their original folder(s) to a new computer,
which had worked for ages, right up until
new computers came off the shelf with Vista
(for people not clever enough to order them with "downgrade rights"
and pre-installed XP :)
The Qualcomm tech note about where and why to put programs and data
has been around since Windows 2000, and the Eudora installers
have ever since chosen the recommended default locations;
however, they are not so inflexible as to refuse to allow the user
to override those defaults, which is an opposite and highly annoying extreme
of some other software. For example, there may be no room on C: (in the user
profiles) for gigabytes of existing or expected mail, or even for programs,
and I regularly see owners who have C: 100% full while D: is 100% free,
so what is the point to trying to force them to do the impossible,
and guarantee an installation or operational failure?
One may even want to install to a USB stick, which happens to work perfectly well
(since Windows 2000) for Eudora, without needing any "U3" drive or special software.
Users who have so long used Eudora that they go back way before Windows 2000
are likely to already have mail stored with the programs,
so it appears that Qualcomm felt obliged not to make the product fail to work,
upon an upgrade, by forcing these users to start anew,
although giving new users a perfectly right start,
if their systems can even afford to adhere to the usual conventions.
Even today, a Vista user who had started with the very first Eudora ever offered
can still turn off UAC, at his/her own discretion, and work that same original way,
if (s)he wishes to accept (or even prefers) to work the way they always have.
They are also free to put everything on D:, or on a network share,
or wherever their own needs and judgment may indicate;
proper guidance and information is provided,
but not dictatorial insistence,
which has long suited those people who know what they are doing,
or who don't want to have their decades of existing files,
which some say they still need to search every day, become unusable.
Just like political and economic freedom, however,
it is accompanied by risks and responsibility,
and many mentors are available to help those
who may exercise their freedom and make mistakes.
> Windows Vista and 7 are doing their best
> to compensate for the devs idiocy.
Although your MVP category does not make you responsible for Vista,
I'll throw a question at you anyway, just because you're the only one
who declares any officially recognized Microsoft expertise,
who shows up in this newsgroup :)
In "Inside Windows Vista User Account Control"
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.06.uac.aspx
Mark Russinovich (a well known Microsoft guru) says:
Standard user accounts don't have write-access
to the %ProgramFiles% directory or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software,
but because most Windows systems are single-user
and most users have been administrators up until Windows Vista,
apps that incorrectly save user data and settings to these locations work anyway.
Windows Vista enables these legacy applications to run in standard user accounts
through the help of file system and registry namespace virtualization.
When an application modifies a system-global location
in the file system or registry, and that operation fails
because access is denied, Windows redirects the operation to a per-user area;
when the application reads from a system-global location,
Windows first checks for data in the per-user area and, if none is present,
permits the read attempt from the global location.
You would expect, from the above, that this use of "VirtualStore" folders
would be so transparent that everything would work anyway,
without bothering to turn off UAC, yet everyone who has copied
their "legacy" Eudora folders to Vista, under program files,
has been reporting all along that it doesn't work at all
(more precisely, writing does get redirected to "VirtualStore,"
but reading apparently does not),
until they either reorganize everything to move the data elsewhere,
or else simply turn off UAC.
For another reference, see
"File System and Registry Virtualization"
and "Virtualization Example" in
http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/5538
So, why doesn't the above Vista theory seem to work in practice, for Eudora?
(or are the user reports all wrong?)
> Also devs should be doing their work as regular users and not admins.
> They would then find these kinds of problems a lot sooner.
> Before such problems even made it to the testers let alone the general public.
As argued above, Eudora developers have known all about it,
have arranged for users who take their advice
(and accept the installer defaults) to be free of problems
[very special cases which no one even reports were addressed several
versions ago], but do not lock users in a cage and throw away the key :)
And finally, the above theory should have taken care of it anyway,
should it not?
> Now granted Eudora is no longer being developed.
Its last version was released while Vista was still at "release candidate" stage,
but Qualcomm said it had been tested under Vista, and indeed it works under Vista,
except for those users who show up saying "I simply copied my Eudora directory
from my old machine to my new one, just as I've been doing for years,
and now everything is going wrong" :)
Other issues like that which actually started this thread ("can't paste")
have nothing to do with the "programs vs. data" issue,
are reported across a whole spectrum of products,
and we finally found another MVP (posting elsewhere, follow link below)
laying it squarely upon Microsoft, a "memory issue" in Vista,
perhaps exacerbated by pushing it onto hardware
that isn't really up to the demands of its gas guzzling engine
and overall inefficiency (well illustrated by official
Microsoft "system requirements" for Windows Live Mail,
which declare the need for much more minimum memory under Vista than under XP).
There are also some issues which there was no means to anticipate,
again having nothing to do with "programs vs. data" or UAC,
like the following, which bothers only the "Address Book,"
only when used in a certain way for "multiple selections,"
but generates many complaints against Eudora,
for an ultimate cause traceable to Vista
(did Microsoft ever announce it, for all developers to anticipate?)
http://eudorabb.qualcomm.com/showpost.php?p=41099
Vista should have been optional, and not forced upon manufacturers, though
basically forced only upon ill prepared consumers, while businesses have been able
to postpone and skip Vista, which should have come with a mandatory warning label
to alert everyone, saying "Danger ahead -- falling rock zone" :)
--