Can't stop automatic downloading in Windows Live Mail

Hi Walker

Sorry if I'm confusing the situation. Basically, as mentioned, now that I have unchecked all my accounts so that none is included if you just click "Sync", no emails at all are being downloaded unless I request them. Which is fine by me, and is what I meant when I said that I can live with it. I should have been more effusive. It's great! I didn't mean there was still a problem. You and the other correspondents have shown me how to get things working as I wanted, and I'm grateful to everyone.

The reason I was still wondering if there's an underlying bug is just that it seems to me that it shouldn't actually be necessary to uncheck all the accounts in this way. If you uncheck "Check for new messages every ..." and you also uncheck "Send and receive messages at startup", I would have thought that this should be enough to tell Windows Live Mail that you don't want messages downloaded at any time unless you request them.

The system seems to be set up to work in pretty much the same way as Outlook Express, and in OE, if you did all the above, messages were not downloaded at all unless requested. I don't see why Windows Live Mail should have changed the rules from that situation. It appears to offer the same control as OE, but apparently doesn't quite live up to it.

But it's really not a big deal. It works fine for me. I just didn't want to duck ouf of this without querying that underlying point.

Hi Walker

I thought I'd responded to your latest posting yesterday, but my reply seems to have vanished! By way of much shorter repetition, Windows Live Mail is now working correctly, and not downloading any emails unless I call them up. This is because I have unchecked the options to download emails periodically or at startup, and also unchecked "include this account" for all accounts.

I only suggested it still seemed to work in a strange way because when you set up Outlook Express as above, it never downloaded emails unless requested, even if all accounts were still checked to be included when syncing etc. I couldn't see why Live Mail should behave differently. But you might feel it is meant to work like this.

Thanks for your help, anyway.

Whoops - my reply did get uploaded! Sorry - I seem to be having trouble with my browser not refreshing. But don't worry, I'm not going to get into that! Thanks again, and thanks for your kind comments too.

Parhelix is absolutely right. The downloading without permission IS a bug - and it has NOT been fixed. Reading how many folks are upset about this and also about the foolish Sync thing, you'd have thought that Microsoft would have done something by now. They encourage feedback, which is good - but ONLY if they are going to take notice of it, and then act upon it.

Also like Parhelix, I use Mailwasher to view incoming mail and bounce back spam and scams. But WLM beats me and downloads them before I can get to see them. Grr...

Because of very poor vision, and having to view my screen in (mostly) white on a black background, with numbers of things that don't show, or show poorly (like all links which are dark blue on black, and therefore unreadable for me - once again a poor Microsoft job). So I have enough problems to cope with. WLM is the only email program out of about 10 we've looked at/tried that I can use, yet I have to put up with these incredible and frustrating problems.

MICROSOFT, I have to wonder: do you CARE about us, or not?

Walker,

What does "Windows Outreach Team" mean? Do you have any access in through the triple-locked heavy metal door into the hallowed halls of Microsoft to acquaint the powers that be about the dreadful aspects of Windows Live Mail - which should have been FIXED ages ago, not ignored!

Having started with Microsoft in the days of DOS 3, and later Windows 3, I understand a lot about how Microsoft functions, and along with millions of others feel frustrated at lack of action when it's clearly required! WLM could actually be a pretty classy email client with a number of great features - but what do we have to do to get their attention to fix these ludicrous and appalling problems?

Cheers!

This appears to be a bug in WLM 2011. I'm still using WLM 2009 with my POP3 account checked to "include..." but in the options I've unchecked the two download options (at startup and timed); as a result mail is only downloaded when I hit "sync" ("send and receive"). However I don't keep the program open for long periods of time, so I can't say for sure that it would not auto download if I left it open for several hours.

roncerr said:

This appears to be a bug in WLM 2011. I'm still using WLM 2009 with my POP3 account checked to "include..." but in the options I've unchecked the two download options (at startup and timed); as a result mail is only downloaded when I hit "sync" ("send and receive"). However I don't keep the program open for long periods of time, so I can't say for sure that it would not auto download if I left it open for several hours.

It's a bug in 2009 also Roncerr. I'm currently shutting WLM down except when using it to at least stop some of this downloading nonsense. If it's been a bug since 2009, can someone tell me why on earth they haven't fixed it? Just don't care?