OE slow to open, slow to switch mail folders, slow in everything

OE very slow when working in a news account

The usual cause is a very large local file with many news headers, even if marked as read and hidden from view. When you notice a group getting slower, it's time to clean up your newsgroupscompact your folders. and

If the performance is slow when first opening a newsgroup, and when switching between newsgroups, it could be because the news account has a very large number of newsgroups. This is seldom a problem on systems with lots of memory, or on accounts with less than 25,000 or so newsgroups. If you suspect this is your problem, you can try my workaround.

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OE slow to open, slow to switch mail folders, slow in everything

This could be caused by a bloated Folders.dbx file. Compact your folders to see if performance improves. If not, run Scan Disk followed by Disk Defragmenter. If performance is still slow, rename or delete Folders.dbx. Please read the consequences of doing this first.

Another possible source is a corrupt or missing Protected Storage Service.

Replace the Protected Storage Service (Pstore)

This procedure applies only to Windows95 and Windows98.

1. Close Outlook Express, the Windows Address Book and all IE browser windows.
2. Create a new folder by right-clicking a blank spot on your desktop and name it Pstore. Double-click the Pstore folder to open it.
3. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Windows\System.
4. Move the following 4 files to the Pstore folder:

   psbase.dll
   pstorec.dll
   pstorerc.dll
   pstores.exe

5. Extract new copies of the 4 files and place them in C:\Windows\System.
   
   If you are using the original Win98 version of IE5.0, click Start| Run and type without quotes "SFC". Click "Extract one file from installation disk" and enter the name of the file. Extract all 4 files to C:\Windows\System, using the Win98 CD-ROM as the source.
   
   If you are using any other version of IE5, including IE5.01 and IE5.5, you will need to extract the files from the Windows Update Setup Files directory which contains the CAB files for IE5 or IE5.5. You can do this by opening a DOS window on the proper directory and typing the following commands. (Note that if you are using a CDROM as the source for the CAB files, you must first copy "ie_s4.cab" and "ie_s5.cab" to your hard disk, and extract from there).

   extract /a ie_s4.cab ie_4.cab
   extract /a ie_s4.cab ie_5.cab
   extract /a ie_4.cab ps*.*

   Since the ie_4.cab and ie_5.cab are not normally in the setup folder outside of their "containers", I suggest you now delete them using these:

   delete ie_4.cab
   delete ie_5.cab
   
   Under Win98, you can also open the cab files directly to extract the files, or you can use Winzip and similar programs under any version of Windows. However in that case you will need to open ie_s4.cab, and then open the ie_4.cab that it contains in order to extract the files. On some versions of IE5.5, only 3 of the files are in ie_4.cab. In that case, you must also open the ie_s5.cab, open the contained ie_5.cab and then extract the final pstore file.

6. Restart your computer immediately.

Special thanks to Kyle Brant for helping me with the intricacies of extracting files from CABs within CABs.

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OE gradually slows down

This is almost always a sign of folders in need of compaction and/or a fragmented disk. Clean up your newsgroups, compact your folders, then run Disk Defragmenter (Start| Programs| Accessories| System Tools).