bearduk


Subject:

Reading in account{xxxx}.oeaccount in Windows Mail from preconfigured files

When Using Windows Mail under Vista, there is a document that claims you can import preconfigured account files.

Document location

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp url=/library/en-us/outlookexpress/oe/overviews/account_entry.asp

It does not seem to work or I am doing it wrong

I have tried the sample files from the document just pasting them into an appropriate editor and creating the account{xxxx}.oeaccount file.

I have created an account under the tools options in Windows Mail and then used this as a template and once edited, Windows Mail will not read in the file.

I have tried to create the XML file manually using both Windows Text Editors and Unix Text Editors and it still does not work.

I have also read the xml file into third party software to alter the settings and it does not like reading in the file that windows mail has created as XML but it can deal with them as a plain text format.

On the Pre-Configured Scenario I take it that the store root folder is (taken from above url)

%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows Mail and there should be a file called account{xxxx}.oeaccount place here to enable Windows Mail to create the account.

The type of Email system is IMAP so I used the account{donhallimap}.oeaccount as a template.

Hopefully you can help with this problem as we need to configure rather a lot of email settings and doing them manually would be a backward step considering that I can place the email setting in the registry for users with Windows XP.

The only way in which I have managed to get a new account created from an existing one is where I have copied the account{xxxx}.oeaccount file from an existing folder and placed it in the root folder so Windows Mail can find it, but I have not edited it in anyway.

The Windows Vista system is a clean install.



hope you can help !




Re: Importing preconfigured mail accounts under Vista Windows Mail

mrfreyman


I'm having the same trouble as well. Did you ever solve your problem Note they state the .oeaccount file is only detected at system startup. I cannot get Windows mail to detect the .oeaccount file...location C:\Users\%Username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp url=/library/en-us/outlookexpress/oe/overviews/account_entry.asp.

I've tried creating my own which contains the same data as what was generated when I stepped through windows mail email account setup, as well as using the template provided by Microsoft. This is on a clean VPC as well.

Hope you were able to solve this...or someone can help!






Re: Importing preconfigured mail accounts under Vista Windows Mail

bearduk

All we did in the end was to change "utf-16" to "utf-8" in the first
line and drop the file in the correct place for winmail, I was told that
utf-16 is used for extented character sets like chinise etc where as
english only needs utf-8





Re: Importing preconfigured mail accounts under Vista Windows Mail

Todd

I have been looking for an answer to this with a small utility I have created to automatically generate SSL accounts for our system. Changing 'utf-16' to 'utf-8' solved the problem instantly. Thanks 'bearduk' for the tip!!!

Todd




Re: Importing preconfigured mail accounts under Vista Windows Mail

Todd

Hello again. Well, a new development has appeared with this issue. My utility creates a fully setup SSL account within Windows Mail that shows all of the correct information when viewing the account from within Mail. However, if I make any change in the account while within Mail and save the changes, all of the text inside the actual file is lost. If I go back to the directory and view the file in Notepad, there is nothing there. It doesn't seem to matter what I change, the file is cleared out when you save.

The account and all of the correct settings will be held in cache until Mail is closed, then when re-opening the application the account will not be listed.

Could the 'utf-16' change have affected this Not sure why all of the contents are wiped away since the file is formatted exactly as one created within Mail.

Thanks.

Todd