error message on Eudora reinstall in Win 7

[davidbe...@gmail.com]

Hi, is this a good place to ask a Eudora (7.1.09)question? The other forum(s) seem to have disappeared.

I just reinstalled after a hard drive failure. After the basic install (in Win 7), I copied over my Eudora folders/files from a back up. The reinstall is in the same location (D:Eudora) as the previous. But when I launch Eudora now, I get an error message "The directory specified in the Data Folder entry of the Eudora.ini file: E:/Eudora doesn't exist or is not writable." After I click OK, Eudora proceeds to launch and works just fine, so it's basically just an annoyance. But I can't figure out what is causing it. In the shortcut properties, the target is D:\Eudora\Eudora.exe and the "Start in" is D:\Eudora.

TIA for any pointers.

[Tom Hall]

Edit the line in Eudora.ini to point to where your data is now located.

Tom

--
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[David Bergman]

Thanks Tom. I looked in the Eudora.ini file (via Notepad) but couldn't find any line relating to data or containing "E:/Eudora." Am I looking in the wrong place?

[David Bergman]

I think I found a clue. There is also a DEudora.ini file as well as Eudora.ini. And that has a line up at the top "DataFolder=E:\Eudora." The contents of that file look quite different from Eudora.ini.

I can change that line in the DEudora.ini, but should there be two ini files?

Thanks again.

[John H Meyers]

On 11/3/2013 3:17 PM, Tom Hall wrote:

> Edit the line in Eudora.ini to point to where your data is now located.

As David Bergman found out, there isn't any such line,
because the "line" in question is found somewhere else,
in a file named "Deudora.ini" (whose name starts with "D").

As Dennis Lee Bieber then informed us, file Deudora.ini
is created by the Eudora _installer_ and resides in the
same place as Eudora's _program_ files, which in modern times
should be located completely apart from user data files.

So file Eudora.ini (containing the user's account definitions
and personalities, along with other options and settings),
normally resides in the user data area,
while file Deudora.ini resides with program files:

Program files [which never change after being installed]:

Executable programs and DLLs

Deudora.ini:
DataFolder=path of user's data directory
[or]
UseAppData=1 ["User's Application Data Folder" per Windows' default]

[defaults for arbitrary user settings may be inserted]

The "Mappings" section, defining attachment file types,
is treated as if logically appended
to the same section of Eudora.ini

Plugins and other subfolders [static program files only]

Data files [created and updated while running Eudora]:

Eudora.ini [personalities, options, and other settings]
Mailboxes [*.mbx with corresponding *.toc for each]
Filters [filters.pce]
Address book [nndbase.*]
Etc.

Plugins and other subfolders [user data for each plugin]


Looking at the above, we see that Eudora must locate the
user's data folder first, after which it can find Eudora.ini
inside that data folder, rather than the other way around,
and that's why Eudora.ini does not contain its own location,
because you need to already know the location
before you can find the right Eudora.ini

If Eudora is launched without a second path on its command line,
it depends on installation file Deudora.ini to find the user's data,
but if there is a second path (to a directory) on the command line,
then that explicitly specified directory is used for user data,
ignoring installation file Deudora.ini

If even Deudora.ini doesn't yet point to a data directory,
certain registry entries may be inspected, which were left
by previous launches of Eudora.

--

[Tom Hall]

On Mon, 4 Nov 2013 12:03:06 -0800 (PST), David Bergman
<davidbe...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I think I found a clue. There is also a DEudora.ini file as well as Eudora.ini. And that has a line up at the top "DataFolder=E:\Eudora." The contents of that file look quite different from Eudora.ini.
>
>I can change that line in the DEudora.ini, but should there be two ini files?

Yes. Change the line in deudora.ini and you should be good to go.

[davidbe...@gmail.com]

Thanks everyone! Changing that line deudora.ini did indeed fix the problem.

Perhaps you might also have insight into a longer standing minor error. This one dates to one when I initially installed Eudora in this computer, prior to last week's hard drive failure, migrating from an XP computer. Upon launching Eudora, I see this error (which doesn't prevent Eudora from working):

"Eudora was unable to update the system registry. Your default mail program has not be changed."

Thanks again.

[John H Meyers]

On 11/6/2013 7:32 PM, davidbergman wrote:

> "Eudora was unable to update the system registry.
> Your default mail program has not be changed."

Since I just revised my "standard essay" on this topic
for another forum, I can pretend to type very fast
by just copying and pasting :)

You should use Windows' standard methods
to set your default programs, and simply suppress
the tests and messages in Eudora, because:

Eudora knows only how to attempt to change the default mailer
for all Windows users at once, which was the only way
to set the default mailer through Windows XP,
which was the current version of Windows
as of Eudora's final update (7.1.0.9) in October 2006.

Subsequent versions of Windows have new "per Windows user"
defaults, which Eudora knows nothing about, and non-privileged
programs can no longer set registry keys for the old "global" default,
which relates to the stated problem, and may occur even if
Eudora _already is_ the default mailer for your Windows login.

It is not necessary (and in certain cases could be harmful)
to run Eudora in "administrator" mode to force the issue
(the worst case is where virtualized, re-directed files
revert back to protected locations for that one launch,
updating the wrong files during that entire session).


Here's one solution in terms of two clickable links
(within an incoming or outgoing Eudora message,
the following turn blue, like other links,
and can be clicked on while also depressing ALT):

<X-Eudora-Option:DefaultMailto=0>
<X-Eudora-Option:WarnDefaultMailto=0>

Here's another solution
in terms of the standard options interface:

1. Turn ON "Warn me if Eudora is not default mailer"
Then, when the dialog comes up at Eudora's launch:
2a. Put a check mark next to "Don't ask me again."
2b. Click the "No" button.


Detailed explanation:

Two separate settings are involved,
one of which you can see in the Options interface,
and the other of which remains unseen.

"Warn me if I start Eudora
and it's not the default mailer"
(a choice that you see in the options interface)
corresponds to this internal option value:
<X-Eudora-Option:WarnDefaultMailto>
The original default is 1 [yes]

When the warning comes up, also asking you
whether you want to set Eudora as default,
your Yes/No decision
(according to which button you press)
is remembered in this otherwise unseen setting:
<X-Eudora-Option:DefaultMailto>
The original default is 0 [no]

The warning also contains a "Do not ask me again"
check box, and if you also check that box,
then the first option ("warn me") is also turned back off.

If your last decision was "yes" (make Eudora the default)
but you also check-marked "do not ask me again"
then at every subsequent launch, Eudora will, without asking,
try to set a registry value that influences all users of the
computer (meaning all different Windows user accounts),
but that value is now protected against being changed
by non-privileged applications, and that's how you end up
getting an error about failing to change the Registry,
every single time you launch Eudora, even if you've actually
already made Eudora your default mailer at the "user level"
within Windows, which Eudora knows nothing about.

If you click _both_ links above (one for each different option)
and make _both_ value 0, then the error message will go away.

Or, if you turn _on_ the "warn me" option, Eudora will ask you
what to do, when it is next launched, and the right response is:

(a) Put a check mark next to "Don't ask me again."
(b) Click the "No" button.

Eudora will then forever afterward not ask you again,
but now without trying to change anything in the Registry,
so there will be no more "can't change the Registry" messages.

--

[davidbe...@gmail.com]

Thanks John. I used the second method (the one through Options)because I wasn't sure where to make the X-Eudora changes, and it worked -- thanks. It was the unintuitive clicking No part that I must have gotten wrong initially.

If I may add one part to your instructions, I took me a little while to find the place in Options to change that warning -- it's under (as I'm sure you know, but I didn't) "Extra Warnings."

Thanks again.

[CrosseyedMary]

On Sunday, November 10, 2013 at 10:29:30 AM UTC+11, davidbe...@gmail.com wrote:
> Thanks John. I used the second method (the one through Options)because I wasn't sure where to make the X-Eudora changes.

The first solution option is to simply copy the two lines into the "body" of a new Eudora email. You don't need a TO, FROM or SUBJECT because you are NOT going to sent it.

<X-Eudora-Option:DefaultMailto=0>
<X-Eudora-Option:WarnDefaultMailto=0>

As John H Meyers says; these will show up blue because they are clickable links.
- While holding down ALT left click each one in turn to bring up the corresponding dialog box.
- You will see the parameter now has the correct setting "0" - Click OK.
- When both parameters are complete the task is complete and temporary email body is no longer required.