Change of data directory

[peri...@yahoo.com]

Running Windows 7 Home Premium and Eudora 7 1 0 9.
Is it possible to change the location of the Eudora data folder (containing the mailboxes)?
Have tried to edit the deudora.ini file with the new path, but access denied. Cannot find another folder that shows a path with the data folder.
The program will continue to run out of the default installation path Program files x86 Qualcomm. Only the location of this data folder, also containing the attachments folder, should be changed. Is that possible without reinstallation?
Thank you.

[Ajo Wissink]

Change the path in the Target field of the shortcut for Eudora
(right-click on the shortcut and select Properties)

The Target should show "path to eudora.exe" "path to the Data
directory"

For example:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Qualcomm\Eudora\Eudora.exe"
"C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Qualcomm\Eudora"

[John H Meyers]

On 8/31/2013 10:49 AM:

> Running Windows 7 Home Premium and Eudora 7.1.0.9

>
> The program will continue to run out of the default
> installation path Program files x86 Qualcomm
>
> Is it possible to change the location of the
> Eudora data folder (containing the mailboxes)?
>
> Have tried to edit the deudora.ini file with the new path, but access denied.
>
> Cannot find another folder that shows a path with the data folder.

There are TWO important, independent paths,
revealed by "Help" > "About Eudora"

Data: [user's files, all created when user runs the program]
Application: [The originally installed program files, none modified
since the year 2006 except special installer file "Deudora.ini"]

You didn't say:
(a) _How_ you "installed" [ran the installer? just copied old computer files?]
(b) If "installer," what answers were given to the two "path" questions?
(c) What paths (particularly _Data_) are now shown by "Help" > "About Eudora"?

If (c) is that both paths are within "program files"
then some or all "user" files have been "virtualized" -- they are not really
where they appear to be, and Eudora will consequently never really work properly,
even if an illusion temporarily masks the "gathering storm" ;-)

> Only the location of this data folder, also containing the attachments folder,

> should be changed. Is that possible without re-installation?

If "re-installation" means "running the official installer for Eudora 7.1.0.9"
and if you specify the same location for program files, then "installation"
simply stores the same program files again, into the same place, although
the answer to the second question (about where to look for your user data)
can influence one single line in the newly stored Deudora.ini file,
which will be either

UseAppData=1 ["User's Application Data Folder"]
-or-
DataFolder=[specific path]

However, that single line in Deudora.ini does not necessarily determine
which folder Eudora will think is the right "data" folder to use.

To get an idea of the actual logic which is followed as Eudora is launched,
you may read "Precisely how Eudora determines its data folder"
in Eudora's "Readme.txt" file, or in this copy on the web:
<http://www.eudora.com/download/eudora/windows/7.1/Readme.txt>

Item #1 in the list tells you that the presence of a command line argument
when launching Eudora, if it happens to be the path to a directory,
will force Eudora to use that path for the "data" folder, for that launch.

Only if Eudora reaches items #3-4 in that "logic tree,"
without the "data" path having already been decided by other circumstances,
does one of the lines above in Deudora.ini have any influence.

The meaning of "User's Application Data Folder" is equivalent to the following
_symbolic_ path in Windows: %AppData%\Qualcomm\Eudora

However, any "virtualized" user files or folders (only in Windows Vista or later)
will instead be found buried below this path: %LocalAppData%\VirtualStore

After Eudora version 7.1.0.9 launches and selects its "data" folder,
each path shown in "Help" > "About Eudora" may simply be clicked on
to open that path in Windows.

Simply put together all the facts above to answer any further questions,
or to find all your possibly currently scattered user files,
depending on whether you first launched when they were under "program files."

Hi, Ajo -- your short reply got posted first -- perhaps I should just post
"oh, forget it" in answer to anything that normally requires
writing a whole book to fully answer :)

--

[peri...@yahoo.com]

I have two shortcuts to Eudora. One in the Start menu, All Programs. Properties there show only the path to Eudora.exe in the Programs folder, nothing about the data folder.
The other shortcut is pinned to the taskbar and right clicking shows no Properties.
Creating a new shortcut on the Desktop and rightclicking it for Properties shows also nothing about data.
I have read all the literature about shortcuts, but mine seem not to cooperate.

Help About shows:
Data C:\Users\Peter\Documents\Data\Application Data\Eudora
Application: C:Program Files (x86)\Qualcomm\Eudora

[John H Meyers]

[second time around, answering same inquiry again,
help me if I'm stuck in a revolving door :]

On 8/31/2013 10:49 AM:

> Running Windows 7 Home Premium and Eudora 7 1 0 9.
> Is it possible to change the location
> of the Eudora data folder (containing the mailboxes)?
> Have tried to edit the deudora.ini file with the new path, but access denied.

Exactly the same thing as "editing Deudora.ini"
is accomplished by just re-running Eudora's installer
and giving a new answer to its second question
[where do you want mail and settings, etc.]

> Cannot find another folder that shows a path with the data folder.
> The program will continue to run out of the default installation path
> Program files x86 Qualcomm. Only the location of this data folder,
> also containing the attachments folder, should be changed.

> Is that possible without re-installation?

"Re-installation" is just a matter of running the installer
and clicking "next" a few times, which basically ends up
doing nothing more than giving you the opportunity
to change that one line in Deudora.ini which you want to change.

Otherwise you can forever launch Eudora using a modified "shortcut"
(pointing explicitly to a new "Data" folder), as Ajo said,
but if you simply start Eudora.exe or use an un-modified shortcut
at some later time, then back you go to the original "Data" location,
whatever it was.

We have no idea, however, from what you ask and say, whether you
are "invested" in retaining data that you've already accumulated
(i.e. need to move old data to new location) or are just starting
a brand new installation, nor whether, if you already have
much data to preserve, that data is in a "proper" location
or was "virtualized" by running Eudora
with "data" in the "program files" area.

"Ay, there's the rub," said someone or other,
about not knowing what data may come, or something like that ;-)

<http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/387300.html>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_be,_or_not_to_be>

--

[John H Meyers]

Every time I start typing,
something else gets posted while I'm still typing :)

On 8/31/2013 9:40 PM:

> I have two shortcuts to Eudora. One in the Start menu, All Programs.
> Properties there show only the path to Eudora.exe in the Programs folder,
> nothing about the data folder.

A program-launching shortcut contains a _command line_ ["target"]
which launches the program. When there are more "words" on that line
than just the path to the program,
the program _interprets_ those additional words
to mean whatever its programmers wanted you to be able to tell it.

IF you append just one extra word (or quoted string)
to Eudora's program path in that command line,
and if that appended string is a "path" to a directory,
Eudora's interpretation is that you want it to use that path
as the "Data" directory, just as is described in Eudora's
"Readme.txt" file. Immediately after installing, of course,
the single "all users" shortcut created by the installer
does not specify such a path,
so of course you do not see any extra string -- however,
you can _edit_ the shortcut yourself to insert such a string,
and that's how _you_ can _force_ Eudora to use any specific directory at all,
for anyone who uses that shortcut, as Ajo was telling you.

One reason that there's no specific path in the normal "all users"
shortcut that's installed with Eudora is that different Windows users
will normally, by default, each have their own Eudora "Data" directory,
which by default will be in each user's own "Application Data" section
of their personal "Windows profile." Most applications are designed
to act in a similar way, so that different Windows users may share
a single computer, as was once as typical of a household where
a computer was so expensive a thing that the family would have
only one, and everyone would share it, the computer then typically
would have different "accounts" for "Mom," "Dad," "Sis" and "Bro,"
each one of which could have separate email, even though all might use Eudora.

Nowadays more of us have a computer all to ourselves,
and the fundamental design of Windows as an operating system
for a sharable computer has been completely forgotten.

At any rate, you can make any shortcut point to any specific Data directory
by editing the shortcut. If you want to have several different Data directories,
you can make several shortcuts and edit different "Data" paths into each one.

If you are going to have only one Eudora Data folder in your computer,
you can let it be the default that Eudora would choose anyway
for your Windows login identity, or you can force it to be
anywhere by using an edited shortcut to launch Eudora,
or you can edit a specific path into file Deudora.ini
by supplying that specific path to the installer itself,
which inserts your answer into Deudora.ini for you.

Eudora's "Readme.txt" file describes all the logical steps
by which Eudora looks around for various clues as to
which directory you want it to use, all because
there are several different mechanisms you can use
to tell Eudora what you want,
which Eudora ranks in some order of priority
as it starts trying to figure it out upon each launch.

> The other shortcut is pinned to the taskbar and right clicking shows no Properties.

There is no such thing as a shortcut with no properties,
but I don't recall how "pinning" a program to the Taskbar works.

> Creating a new shortcut on the Desktop and right-clicking it for Properties

> shows also nothing about data.

Hopefully we understand by now why the single "all users" shortcut
that the installer itself creates does not point to a specific directory
that all users have to share, and also why you are free
to edit it to point to any directory that you want
to force upon all users of the shortcut (even if you're the only user).

> I have read all the literature about shortcuts, but mine seem not to cooperate.

You are looking for a tail which wags the dog,
but God happened to make this work the other way around --
the original shortcut doesn't come with anything extra written into it,
so it's up to YOU to append that yourself, if you want to use that method.

> Help About shows:
> Data C:\Users\Peter\Documents\Data\Application Data\Eudora
> Application: C:Program Files (x86)\Qualcomm\Eudora

Fantastic -- we are relieved to see that you never tried to use
your "program files" area as a "user data" directory.

So you can now tell Eudora to use some other path,
either via the "DataFolder=" path written into Deudora.ini by the installer,
or by replacing Deudora.ini with an edited copy,
or via personally editing a specific path into any Eudora-launching shortcut.

It's a shame that Eudora is so adaptable that there are several ways
to tell it what directory to use for data, because you seem to have
expected that there is only one place and one way to do this,
which would be lit up in bright lights when you looked there,
but each place you've looked hasn't been that one and only possible place,
and indeed the matter may thus far have been left to a built-in default,
which means that there could even be _no_ explicit path written anywhere yet,
just waiting for you to decide where to write it in yourself.

--

[peri...@yahoo.com]

Have copied the Eudora data folder into the new path. Trying to edit the deudora.ini file results in Access denied. Copied it and edited the path to show the new one. Then moved the old deudora.ini file elsewhere and pasted in the edited one.
Then started Eudora, expecting that the new path would be used, but not, the Help About shows that the old path is still in use, inspite of the deudora.ini file showing the new path. What's going on?
Have used this approach because the exact syntax of editing the target in the shortcut is not specified in the Readme.txt or anywhere else I looked. Have come across several references to edit the target but not one says exactly how.

[Ajo Wissink]

Just add the Data path (the Application path is already there) and
don't forget the quote marks as illustrated in the example I posted.

[Ajo Wissink]

Also, leave a space between the 2 paths.

[peri...@yahoo.com]

Yes, now it worked. Editing the target path did it. Was scared to touch that before.
Thanks for all the help and explanations to understand the program better. I have tried several other email programs, but all failed because of the handling of attachments. Is there nothing new that can beat Eudora or at least be the same? Why are they all paranoid in the way they handle attachments?

[John H Meyers]

On 9/1/2013 12:35 AM:

> So you can now tell Eudora to use some other Data path,
> either via the ["UseAppData=1" or] "DataFolder=" path

> written into Deudora.ini by the installer,
> or by replacing Deudora.ini with an edited copy,

> or via personally editing and appending a specific path
> to the command line property ["Target"]
> of any Eudora-launching shortcut.

Don't read the following if you hate restaurant menus
that offer so many choices that you can't make a decision,
but there are even more ways to get Eudora to use
a directory of your choice for the user's data files:

One of the operations that MS Windows supports
is where you can click on and drag something
(e.g. a file, an image, a directory, a window)
and "drop" the dragged object onto something else,
which will then take what you "dropped"
and do something with it.

If you were to click on and drag any icon representing
a disk directory, and "drop" that directory icon
onto the Eudora.exe program file, Windows itself
would create a "command line" in memory,
to launch Eudora and supply it with the additional path
to the object which you just dropped onto the program file.

As everyone knows by now, Eudora will notice if its command line
has any extra parameters, and if it sees a parameter that is
a path to a directory, Eudora will "take the hint" and use
that directory to be the location of the user's data files,
skipping any further thinking about where to find that data.

It might be inconvenient to have to find the Eudora.exe program file
every time you want to drop something onto it, but once again,
Windows has alternatives up its sleeve, one of which is that
if you already have a "shortcut" representing Eudora.exe,
and if that shortcut contains _no_ extra parameters already,
then you can drop any directory icon onto the shortcut instead,
and once again, Eudora will wake up and start using the dropped object,
looking no further for the user's data.

Only if Eudora wakes up and finds no "hint" on its own command line
does it then start looking elsewhere to find some sort of reminder
that its owner may have left to jog its memory, and the Deudora.ini file
(created by the installer) is the next place it would look for a hint,
which is why our OP was trying to edit that file directly,
but since Deudora.ini lives in the "program files" area,
Windows is guarding it against being altered
by anything other than the program's own installer
(you can get around this, but I forgot how :)

All the same, you can use the installer itself to change that one line
in Deudora.ini, and since the installer never removes nor alters
any user-created data, the act of running the installer
affects program files only, with no loss of nor change to
nor any kind of "reset" to any settings nor other user data at all
(as the OP seemed to be afraid of, trying to avoid "reinstalling"
as if this might wipe out existing settings or user data,
which in fact it does not).

The OP made the true observation that neither the single
"all users" shortcut to Eudora that the installer itself creates
nor any new shortcut to Eudora.exe that the user makes via Windows
ever initially contains any extra command line parameters,
so if a user wants to add a path to a directory right into a shortcut,
(s)he must edit the "Target" property of the shortcut herself.

When the user employs an edited shortcut (or even a "drag and drop")
to provide the extra command line info,
then that extra info already tells Eudora
where the user's "Data" is, and Eudora doesn't even bother
looking further to see whether any older hint was left in Deudora.ini

Otherwise Deudora.ini is the next place Eudora looks for a hint,
and various other hiding places are explored after that,
where Eudora leaves behind a few "bread crumbs" of its own
about all locations ever used in the past for user data.

Finally there are also some defaults, including the
normally different "Application Data" locations
for each different Windows login user.

Does it seem as if the Eudora developers
really gave a lot of thought to this,
and gave the user a wide range of means to choose from,
as well as a strategy for Eudora to otherwise decide for itself?

Such is the problem of "too much freedom,"
which sometimes leaves us wishing that someone had instead
told us exactly what we had to do, in only one possible way,
or tell us what we are going to be served for lunch,
to save us from having to think any more about it ;-)

--

[John H Meyers]

Oh boy, lots of activity has occurred again while I was just typing :)

On 9/1/2013 11:13 AM:

> So far as I recall, deudora.ini is used to provide Default values the
> FIRST time a user runs Eudora under an account. That means when there is no
> eudora.ini or data directory yet in place (and I suspect the access
> violation is because the file was found in the program install location). I
> don't believe it gets accessed if Eudora finds a regular eudora.ini on
> start-up.
>
> When they start Eudora with the standard (no overrides) it looks for
> the eudora.ini in the "normal" locations, and doesn't find one -- it then
> parses the global deudora.ini file to obtain the local standard settings,
> perhaps finding an override on user data directory, and will then create a
> user data directory using the override (if present, otherwise the regular
> user-specific directory is created), and populates this new directory with
> the basic files: empty in/out/trash(/junk), address book, eudora.ini
> (containing values copied in from deudora.ini).

Um, that's completely fictional, sorry to have to say,
except for the bit about needing special privileges
to edit any file in the "program files" area.

In general,
you can't locate the proper _user_ settings file (Eudora.ini)
to be used during the current launch
until you have first located the "Data" directory
to be used during the current launch,
because you have to look _in_ the "Data" directory
for a Eudora.ini file, so you have to make up your mind
_where_ the "Data" is before you can even look for Eudora.ini,
thus Eudora.ini can not tell you in advance
where to look to find itself :)

File Deudora.ini (beginning with "D"), located in the same folder
as Eudora.exe and initialized by the installer, is, on the other hand,
in a pre-known place (in the same folder as the just launched Eudora.exe),
so it is able to contain _one_ special item for potential use during launch,
which is a hint ( UseAppData=1 or DataFolder=[specific path] )
needed to know the "Data" location, if that location is not already known
by having been specified already on Eudora's command line.

Other than these two special "launch time" value assignments,
all other value assignments in Deudora.ini are _defaults_ for
similar potential assignments in Eudora.ini, because every search
for an option value, while Eudora is running, after the data folder
has been decided upon and Eudora.ini has been located,
proceeds in this sequence:

(a) Look in Eudora.ini, stop looking any further if found.
(b) Look for the same option in Deudora.ini, stop looking if found.
(c) Look for defaults in Eudora's main "DLL" program file.

Even the "[Mappings]" sections of Eudora.ini and Deudora.ini
are treated almost exactly the same, because Deudora.ini's section,
if present, is regarded as if appended to Eudora.ini's section,
if present, but "Mappings" are a special thing for categorizing attachment
file types, so enough said about that here (read the manual for more).

There is no "copying" of values from Deudora.ini to Eudora.ini,
it's just that the search sequence (a)(b)(c) noted above
takes care of making Deudora.ini's assignments serve as
defaults for Eudora.ini's assignments, and makes values
built into the program (via the DLL file)
serve as defaults for things not specified in either "ini" file.

As an example, if you store your "registration" info while running Eudora,
the info gets stored into your current Eudora.ini, and if you later
run Eudora with a different "Data" folder to which Eudora.ini wasn't copied,
the previously entered registration info will not be found,
but if you move the registration settings into Deudora.ini,
then your registration info will be found all the time,
even if you switch between different "Data" folders
during different launches of Eudora.

Updates for more modern versions of MS Office files
(e.g. for docx, xlsx, etc.) might also best be made
in the "[Mappings]" section of Deudora.ini, if possible.

--

[John H Meyers]

On 9/1/2013 11:44 AM:

> Yes, now it worked. Editing the target path did it. Was scared to touch that before.

As scared as to adjust Deudora.ini by running the installer again?

Such fears recede as experience is gained,
and making a backup before doing even a "wild experiment"
is another great confidence builder :)

> I have tried several other email programs,
> but all failed because of the handling of attachments.
> Is there nothing new that can beat Eudora or at least be the same?
> Why are they all paranoid in the way they handle attachments?

Do you specifically mean the total destruction of most original
messages, leaving only a "stripped" message body,
no "alternative" or "mixed" parts as originally sent,
no way to get back to the original message "source,"
the mangling of now-ubiquitous UTF-8 character encoding,
no saving of sent outgoing attachments,
to be sure that they will still exist in the future,
and the separation of incoming attachments
which generally have to be renamed to avoid name collisions,
and which frequently lose the connection between the
original message and the actual attachment(s) which belong to it?
(and ditto for all the "embedded" images?)

These things, including the fact that Eudora's email storage
is incompatible with any standards in use for internet mail,
are, in particular, the worst things about Eudora
for a certain class of users other than yourself;
in particular, it's what has caused me to tell my users,
now being migrated to "cloud-based" email under "Google Apps,"
that if they have been using Eudora, we will not even attempt
to upload their old mail to the Gmail-like web component
of Google Apps, although we'll give them this link,
in case they'd like to try to do it for themselves:
<http://nerdfever.com/?p=2116>

Why do all other programs save original messages,
exactly as they are received from servers?
I'd say it's because their designs have a wider
perspective than Eudora, including the important qualities
of inter-operability and archive migration.

Eudora may be the way it is because it was originally developed
earlier, I think before email attachments even existed,
while the rest of the field gathered more experience
before plunging in, and made the right choice
for the period during which they were developed.

Note that you can add an "extension" to Thunderbird,
for example, to extract and separate attachments as Eudora does,
but there is nothing you can do to Eudora to have it
NOT separate and destroy the original messages and remain
incompatible with the rest of the email and Internet universe.

In almost every other way, Eudora shines above the pack
of email clients, but this one thing, I'm afraid,
remains as a blight, as far as the general need
for software that works in a general environment
that includes businesses such as our university.

It's really too bad that the six Eudora developers
whom Qualcomm kept on the Eudora project to work with Mozilla,
after "classic" Eudora development was halted in 2006,
were not able to get Mozilla improved by Eudora's experience,
and had to give up after about four years of little progress
on the Mozilla side. Even as to the ability of Thunderbird
to import Eudora mail, to put it back into a format recognizable
to the rest of the internet, "Eudora OSE" (the last output
of Qualcomm's team in that direction) has an improved importer
that did not even remain in subsequent versions of Thunderbird,
so unless commercial software such as "Aid4Mail" can actually
recover both mail _and_ attachments _and_ embedded content from Eudora,
and re-join it into a standard format like an original internet message,
then there's nothing available to rescue mail that's been saved only in Eudora,
to save it from oblivion as we migrate to "cloud-based" services.

Even the forwarding of mail containing HTML and embedded content
is something that frustrates many a Eudora user, but for those
who do not need to have all the above concerns, who use Eudora
in isolation and will not move on with the times, I'd agree
that Eudora was the best of an earlier era, even a
beacon light for all which followed, and should be kept,
along with any still-running Tucker Motors vehicle :)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Tucker>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Tucker_Sedan>

--

[peri...@yahoo.com]

Most of that geeky stuff you talk about I can't even understand. I'm just a single user and an important criterion is how attachments are handled? Why do you say Eudora destroys the message? If someone attaches something to the message, why would that not automatically be saved, and where I want? Not doing that would be destroying the message, imo.
But I wouldn't mind getting a less archaic client that can do the same. Have tested several last year or so and all were no good.
As to cloud, no thanks. What if the wind ever blows that cloud away and all you have are those files you stored on your own machine? We are on NSA territory here. With computing and storage getting ever cheaper, cloud doesn't make sense if your mind is on self sufficiency.

[John H Meyers]

On 9/2/2013 1:19 AM:

> Why do you say Eudora destroys the message?

Because it does.

Eudora is the _only_ client known to me that can't display
the original message (a/k/a "source") as received,
and that's because, like a kid tearing open a Christmas package,
once the original box has been shredded and all the packaging
has been thrown out, you can never restore that original package
to the state in which it came. Except for the simplest "one-part"
message, the original has been destroyed by the time you can read it.

> If someone attaches something to the message,

> why would that not automatically be saved.

Go ask a Eudora developer "why," if you can find one,
but the fact remains, attachments to outgoing messages
are NOT saved anywhere by Eudora, and attachments to incoming messages
are separated from the messages, in such a way that it causes many problems
to users, over time, as has come up many a time in this newsgroup.

> and where I want? Not doing that would be destroying the message, imo.

Then since it doesn't do what you want,
you have just agreed that Eudora does destroy original messages -- you can not
transfer any of what's left back to another system, such as Gmail, for example,
and that's what "destroyed" means here -- there is no straightforward way
to get general saved Eudora mail archives transferred to Google on-line,
and that's why I told my users (where I'm the E-mail administrator)
not to bother asking me.

> But I wouldn't mind getting a less archaic client that can do the same.
> Have tested several last year or so and all were no good.

Your stated definition of "no good" was as to their attachment handling,
which is mighty ironic, considering that the most awful attachment handling
of any email program is done by Eudora. An Outlook user, on the other hand,
can effortlessly transfer all mail to Google on-line, and every message
(including attachments) will be preserved perfectly, which is what,
in our business, we call "the most good" you can possibly get.

> As to cloud, no thanks. What if the wind ever blows that cloud away
> and all you have are those files you stored on your own machine?

What if the wind blows your personal computer away?
Or it breaks down? Or gets flooded? Or stolen? Or infected?
Do you have any idea how much more redundancy
(and security) is built into world-class cloud data systems
than into any personal computer?

The obvious, simple, and symmetrical backup solutions in each situation are:
o Back up your primarily computer-stored data in the cloud, and
o Back up your primarily cloud-stored data locally.

Google is also among those providers who gives free POP and IMAP
access for computer-based clients, thus allowing you to even
do _both_ in parallel, keeping email on both personal computer
_and_ cloud, so let's hear how you can make that sound worse
than employing only one of the two?

> Cloud doesn't make sense if your mind is on self sufficiency.

That's a big proclamation for someone to make who started off by saying
"most of that geeky stuff you talk about I can't even understand."

--