Netscape 4.79 Mail Question

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Netscape 4.79 Mail Question

Postby geffr » Fri 25 Apr, 2008 4:42 am

Please don't laugh at me too loud, but I'm still using NS 4.79 for email.

I just did a new install on a new machine & it's been a LONG time since I last did so. Does anyone remember how to eliminate the Netscape advertisement page ("Messenger Start Page") start up in Communicator (the email client)? I have the main NS set to start with a blank page (though I do not use the browser).

A second ?, does anyone know of any serious security risks in this email client with java & javascript both turned off?
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Postby Fulvio » Fri 25 Apr, 2008 10:07 am

By the way, this question belongs in the Communicator newsgroup, where it will, probably, be moved to.
I have not had Communicator in years, but to the best of my knowledge, its settings are identical in NS7.2, and Seamonkey. Go to:Edit|Preferences|Mail and Newsgroups|uncheck Mail start page.
As for security, it is not necessary to disable Java, but, definitely, javascript, for security.
in Edit|Preferences|Advanced|scripts and Plugins..
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Postby Ramona » Fri 25 Apr, 2008 11:16 am

geffr,

To remove that annoying page:

1. CLOSE COMMUNICATOR !!! This procedure will not work otherwise ...

2. Use the Windows Explorer file manager and go to your ~\Netscape\Users\{username}\ directory.

3. Find the file named prefs.js and make a backup copy. You can do this quickly in Windows Explorer by right-clicking prefs.js, choosing Copy, then right-click, select a folder for the backup copy, and choose Paste.

4. Use Notepad or another text editor to open prefs.js.

5. Add the following line on a line of its own:

user_pref("mailnews.start_page.enabled", false);

You may wish to copy and paste the above line to avoid misspelling or a typo.

6. If you typed in the above line, verify that it is exactly as shown above. Errors will cause this to fail to work, and may result in a corrupted prefs.js file.

7. Close the text editor and save changes.

8. Restart Netscape.
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Postby Fulvio » Fri 25 Apr, 2008 6:48 pm

I don't understand the suggestion if I understand the problem, in first place.
If my suggestion does not work, then we may have something different from what I am thinking about.
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Postby geffr » Sat 26 Apr, 2008 5:43 am

Ramona wrote:geffr,

To remove that annoying page:

1. CLOSE COMMUNICATOR !!! This procedure will not work otherwise ...

2. Use the Windows Explorer file manager and go to your ~\Netscape\Users\{username}\ directory.

3. Find the file named prefs.js and make a backup copy. You can do this quickly in Windows Explorer by right-clicking prefs.js, choosing Copy, then right-click, select a folder for the backup copy, and choose Paste.

4. Use Notepad or another text editor to open prefs.js.

5. Add the following line on a line of its own:

user_pref("mailnews.start_page.enabled", false);

You may wish to copy and paste the above line to avoid misspelling or a typo.

6. If you typed in the above line, verify that it is exactly as shown above. Errors will cause this to fail to work, and may result in a corrupted prefs.js file.

7. Close the text editor and save changes.

8. Restart Netscape.


Ramona, thank you. That sounds very familiar; I suspect it's what I'm looking for.

Geff
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Postby Fulvio » Sat 26 Apr, 2008 10:04 am

Geffr,
so my suggestion to make a simple change in the Edit|Preferences, is not it?
I was worried about making changes in the Preferences file.
But, unfortunately, I have been unable to reinstall NS4.x, and make it work.
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Postby geffr » Sat 26 Apr, 2008 2:01 pm

Fulvio wrote:Geffr,
so my suggestion to make a simple change in the Edit|Preferences, is not it?
I was worried about making changes in the Preferences file.
But, unfortunately, I have been unable to reinstall NS4.x, and make it work.


Fulvio, I apologize; I didn't see your post above Ramona's. When UI clicked on the link in my email, it went straight to Ramona's post & I was too tired at the time to think to look above it!

Next time I boot that pc I will try both options & report back. It is running fine on xp other then
the featuer that shows how many emails are in a folder isn't working a cross the network (I have NS 4.79 installed on several machines with 1 acting as a server).
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Postby Ramona » Sun 27 Apr, 2008 1:40 pm

Fulvio wrote: I have not had Communicator in years, but to the best of my knowledge, its settings are identical in NS7.2, and Seamonkey. Go to:
Edit|Preferences|Mail and Newsgroups|uncheck Mail start page.


Fulvio,

The above setting doesn't exist in Netscape 4.79, and I believe it was discontinued with Version 4.5, thus the need to disable the advertisement via the prefs.js file.
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Postby Fulvio » Sun 27 Apr, 2008 2:02 pm

Ramona,
you know more about this than anyone else. I had tried to reinstall NS4.8, and I could not get it to work, even with a profile which you sent me.
I had deleted the Users folder.

This comes after, at least one full hour of fretting over this.
As I had said before NS4.8 would not form a profile, nor could one be create. Then, I thought the compatibility thing would work, since it was set, by default to Win98/WinMe. Having WinXP, I thought Win2k was close enough. Not so. So I tried to uninstall 4.8 which was on my computer, and could not get it to do anything. The Uninstaller locked twice.
Then, I thought of two possible option: 1. Delete everything, and clean the Registry, whenever I could stand to do it. 2. Reinstall 4.8, on top. I did that, and the uninstaller worked like a charm. I see that both of you use WinXP. I had 4.8 in Win98SE, but never in XP, and XP is not listed as a compatible OS. Why can you get 4.x to work, and I have so many problems?
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Postby Ramona » Sun 27 Apr, 2008 3:42 pm

Fulvio,

When you did the Registry Clean, after uninstalling 4.8, did you delete:

C:\Program Files\Netscape\Communicator
C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users
C:\WINDOWS\nsreg.dat

Then reinstall, create a new Users profile and see what happens.

Ramona,
everything had been deleted. When, I reinstaledl, I got an empty Users folder, and a Windows|nsreg.dat (which the clueless Search dog could not find, but I get all the files in Netscape Communicator (Windows told me that there was no such folder, and I said yes.
Going to Utilities, I could not get any response in creating a new profile, or any profile. I may give it another shot, mainly it is so crazy.
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Postby geffr » Mon 28 Apr, 2008 8:04 am

Fulvio, I suspect your issue isn't an XP compatibility issue specifically. Other then the start up page & email count issues, I've had no problems running 4.79 on XP in regular xp mode.

Eventually I am going to switch over to Thunderbird, but trying to THOROUGHLY learn XP has been pretty time consuming. I'm very security paranoid, & I know Win 98 REALLY well. It's going to take awhile before I'm equally comfortable on XP.

Geff
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Postby geffr » Tue 29 Apr, 2008 10:59 am

Problem solved with Ramona's suggestion. Thanks to all!!
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Postby Ramona » Tue 29 Apr, 2008 11:28 am

Glad I could help! :)
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Postby Fulvio » Tue 29 Apr, 2008 9:01 pm

I give up! I followed Ramona's suggestions of deleting the three items, and NS4.8 would not start, and I coulod not create a new profile. The Users folder is empty, the the Profile Manager from Utilities does not respond. Typically, I have been getting two-four netscape.exe processes of about 8 MB each. Deleting all of them does not help.
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