Multiple copies of draft emails in Windows Live Mail

I hate to start with an apology, but I can't believe I'm the first to raise this point, so I'm sorry if it's already been done to death. But I've tried searching the forum, and couldn't find a relevant thread.

My issue is this. When I'm writing a new email in Windows Live Mail, like most careful users I like to save the text every now and then. It's an instinct borne of hard experience of losing data, which can happen any time with any software. I just automatically click Cltr-S periodically without even thinking about it.

Unfortunately, it appears to me that every time I do this in Windows Live Mail, the program creates a new copy of my current draft email in the relevant Drafts folder. If it's a long email, or one I'm phrasing with extra care, I can end up with maybe ten or fifteen nearly identical drafts cluttering up the folder!

This behaviour seemed so bizarre when I noticed it that I trawled through the settings, looking for a way to override it, but I can't find any reference. Am I missing something obvious? I must be!

In Outlook Express (sorry to dredge up that familiar phrase), when you do what I've described above, the software behaves logically, and simply resaves the amended draft email each time over the previous version, so that you never have more than one draft copy at any time - which is how nearly all word processors also work. Surely that's how Windows Live Mail should behave too? I realise there might be occasional instances where you would want two different versions of a draft, but surely these instances are far outnumbered by the times when you just want to save a single copy incrementally as you write it?

I received some excellent help when I raised a different WLM issue here a couple of weeks ago. I hope my credit of good will isn't running low yet!

Further to the posting I made a few minutes ago, I've just discovered a further aspect to this.

It appears that the problem of multiple saved copies only arises if you create a draft email, save and close it, then reopen it and edit it. From this point onward, even if you only change a single character in the email, Windows Live Mail saves an additional copy in the drafts folder.

By contrast, if you create a new email and save it during editing, but continue to edit it without closing it, WLM does NOT create multiple copies. You can alter and resave it as many times as you like, and it still only saves the original single copy. However, as soon as you close and reopen it, WLM goes into this bizarre process of creating an additional draft copy every time you edit and save it.

I just checked, and no, Outlook Express does NOT do this in the same situation!

PeterWeb said:

I just checked, and no, Outlook Express does NOT do this in the same situation!

Welcome to the club of Microsoft Progress! I switched from OE to Windows Mail (the new version of OE for Vista) back in 2007. It may be that the bug (or feature?) you describe began with Windows Mail and has been carried forward to WLM. After 3 years of deleting the extra draft copies, I've gotten used to it. Get ready for even more features and bugs when the new version arrives: http://www.winsupersite.com/live/wlwave4_mail.asp

"The new Windows Live Essentials will enter a public beta as soon as this month and will ship in final form later this summer." http://www.winsupersite.com/live/wlwave4_more.asp

Thanks for that cry of fellow-feeling. It's reassuring at any rate to know that I'm not imagining this!

However, if what you say is true, and this fault has existed for several years, that only makes it worse. Joking aside, I can't see any possible circumstances in which saving multiple copies of one email could genuinely be regarded as a "feature". OE worked correctly for more than ten years, so what strange requirement could make this incorrect behaviour now preferable? Even if someone put up a plausible argument for it, there's surely no excuse for different behaviour before and after closing and reopening the message?

It would be nice to think the fault would be corrected in the new version that you mention. But I wonder? I've just read the review you cite, and I must say it makes the new version sound quite interesting - but there's no reference to faults like this. If Microsoft still thinks Live Mail is worth developing (and I'm pleased to see it does), it would be a courtesy to long-standing supporters to iron out glitches at the same time.

Yes, I know the last post in this thread was 777 days ago! That's what's so disturbing to read! I just started using Windows Live. Are there no solutions to this annoying problem yet??? :+(