Changiing default settings.

[micky]

Is there any way to modify the new-install startup values for When to
Purge?

For the 4th or 5th time, my settings for the default number of days
before purging an article with a body, read or unread, has reverted to
30, the factory default.**

I want to keep it at about 2500 but when I'm in a hurry I set it for
32767, the maximum allowed in version 1.93.

There are, I guess two levels of default,
A) the ones that show up in the when one displays Default Group
Properties,

and B) the ones that show up when Agent is first installed.

It seems that for some reason A is reverting to B, although I haven't
noticed that any other value is changing.


At any rate in which file is A stored???? Is it the same file in v1.93
and v6 and later??

And in which file is B stored??? I'm guessing it's agent.exe.

Is there any way to modify wherever B is stored so that if A reverts, it
will revert to a large number, maybe even 32767????


This is a major problem and I really appreciate any help you can give
me.


**This means the next time I unknowingly download headers, all but the
last 30 days disappear. I can redownload those that are still on the
server, but that's not all of them, and even for the ones I get again,
none have bodies, none are marked kept, and none are marked read. So
it's very hard to find anything.

[Ralph Fox]

On Sun, 19 Jul 2015 20:48:31 -0400, micky wrote:

> Is there any way to modify the new-install startup values for When to
> Purge?
>
> For the 4th or 5th time, my settings for the default number of days
> before purging an article with a body, read or unread, has reverted to
> 30, the factory default.**
>
> I want to keep it at about 2500 but when I'm in a hurry I set it for
> 32767, the maximum allowed in version 1.93.
>
> There are, I guess two levels of default,
> A) the ones that show up in the when one displays Default Group
> Properties,
>
> and B) the ones that show up when Agent is first installed.
>
> It seems that for some reason A is reverting to B, although I haven't
> noticed that any other value is changing.
>
>
> At any rate in which file is A stored???? Is it the same file in v1.93
> and v6 and later??

Most of the Agent 1.93 settings at Group >> Default Properties
(Agent v6 settings at Folder >> Default Properties) are stored in
the file "grpprops.dat". It is the same-named file in v1.93 and
v6 and later, but I expect the format has changed between versions
to support changes in options.

> And in which file is B stored??? I'm guessing it's agent.exe.

I believe it is agent.exe.

The installer does not put anything in the data folder.
As for the files which the installer puts in the program folder
itself, none else apart from agent.exe looks likely to contain
the initial settings you asked about.

> Is there any way to modify wherever B is stored so that if A reverts, it
> will revert to a large number, maybe even 32767????
>
>
> This is a major problem and I really appreciate any help you can give
> me.
>
>
> **This means the next time I unknowingly download headers, all but the
> last 30 days disappear. I can redownload those that are still on the
> server, but that's not all of them, and even for the ones I get again,
> none have bodies, none are marked kept, and none are marked read. So
> it's very hard to find anything.

1) Something is definitely odd. Even if your purge settings revert,
Agent does not purge messages which are marked kept.

2) Here, I have unchecked all the "When to Purge" options. I only ever
run purges manually. I have never seen the unchecked options revert
to being checked.


--
Kind regards
Ralph

[micky]

Good point. No , it didn't purge the kept ones. I wasn't thinking when
I liested them. I wish I had kept more of them.

>
>2) Here, I have unchecked all the "When to Purge" options. I only ever
> run purges manually. I have never seen the unchecked options revert
> to being checked.

So does that mean you too have seen the number of days revert? to 30?


OK, I switched to Never for those two categories. In the past I
couldn't use that for one of the groups I read, because it got too big,
but volume has probably decreased now. Right now it has 36,000 headers
and 29,000 bodies. That seems like too many (since in alt.home.repair,
there is generally no long term interest in threads, unless it's
something I need to know and then I Keep the post. )


FTR, I have a backup which might have a lot more articles, maybe
thousands (although it's dropped to 30 days before. After the first
time, I dl'd all the headers and bodies, but I lost track after that.
So I may be able to use the backup. Otherwise, I'll dl all the stuff
again.

One current reason. I'm looking for two posts from months ago. I know
who the author was and I used groups.google based on his name and the
word "wealth" and it didn't find a one. So I left out his name, and it
found about 40, including several by him! Except when I looked at
them, the hits seemed to be more on threads than on his posts, and
whateer the details, I didn't find this post. I'm sure the word wealth
was used, and it's not a politics or econominc ng so that word is not
used often. But I'm not gooing to condemn groups.google (again)
until I try to find it right in Agent and I do so,

A similar situation for "jobs", but I havent' searched yet.

Thanks for the help