Windows Live Mail Problem Running In XP and No MVP Response

Hello - I have a Problem with WLM on XP Service Pack 3

Situation : Calendar - Custom Recurrence - Every Second Thursday

Problem : Calendar shows succeeding months' recurrence occurring on the
Wednesday instead of the Thursday.

Tried the same situation on WLM running in Vista, and the calendar shows
Thursday as it should. It has been suggested that this is a result of XP
First Day of Week settings - but this does not appear to be valid.

Is there a problem with Windows Live Mail and XP. I am a volunteer teacher
(retired programmer) teaching older people in Rockhampton to leave Outlook
Express and Windows Mail, and start to use Windows Live Mail in a progam
sponsored by the local council and regional university.

My investigations to date show that this type of WLM Calendar setting in
Vista, and even in the Thunderbird Lighting calendar extension running on
XP, works exactly as it should. If there is some incompatibility with WLM
Calendar and XP, I would appreciate knowing, so that I could qualify my
teaching by saying that the apparent problem was at least acknowledged and
was being analysed.

Bert Wicks
Rockhampton
Australia

"Bert Wicks" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Hello - I have a Problem with WLM on XP Service Pack 3
>
> Situation : Calendar - Custom Recurrence - Every Second Thursday
>
> Problem : Calendar shows succeeding months' recurrence occurring on the
> Wednesday instead of the Thursday.
>
> Tried the same situation on WLM running in Vista, and the calendar shows
> Thursday as it should. It has been suggested that this is a result of XP
> First Day of Week settings - but this does not appear to be valid.
>
> Is there a problem with Windows Live Mail and XP. I am a volunteer
> teacher (retired programmer) teaching older people in Rockhampton to
> leave Outlook Express and Windows Mail, and start to use Windows Live
> Mail in a progam sponsored by the local council and regional university.
>
> My investigations to date show that this type of WLM Calendar setting in
> Vista, and even in the Thunderbird Lighting calendar extension running on
> XP, works exactly as it should. If there is some incompatibility with WLM
> Calendar and XP, I would appreciate knowing, so that I could qualify my
> teaching by saying that the apparent problem was at least acknowledged
> and was being analysed.

Bert, it's not very helpful to start three threads about the same subject
in three days. If anyone - MVP or not - has any idea about how to solve
your problem, he will surely respond. And if responses are scattered among
three different threads, it will make it very difficult for people to
follow, both now and in the future.

This is not a known problem. I'm using XPSP3 and have no trouble entering
recurring events to appear on the right day/date in subsequent weeks, so
this must be something local. The 'first day of the week' bug was
supposedly fixed in the last release, so it wasn't likely that that was
causing your anomaly, but worth checking nonetheless. There were earlier
cases involving, ISTR, the sort order of days depending on the system date
format(s). Mine are currently ddd, d MMM for Long and dd-MM-yyyy for Short.
With this Long format, I get days' names in the Week view which I don't
with a longer variant. Have you tried changing the format(s) to see if the
problem occurs regardless?
--
Noel

Hello Noel,

Thanks very much for your advice.

You are quite right - I should not have started multiple threads, and will
start no more on this subject.

I will endeavour to check out your suggestions today.

It is heartening to me that you do not experience the problem on XP SP3. My
evidence was that the same problem arose on two different computers both
running XP SP3 - so I assumed that there must be some incompatibility
between WLM and XP.

I will now follow your advice and look more closely locally. I will report
back but it may take me a couple of days to do so.

Kind Regards

Bert Wicks

"Bert Wicks" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Hello Noel,
> Thanks very much for your advice.
> You are quite right - I should not have started multiple threads, and
> will start no more on this subject.
> I will endeavour to check out your suggestions today.
> It is heartening to me that you do not experience the problem on XP SP3.
> My evidence was that the same problem arose on two different computers
> both running XP SP3 - so I assumed that there must be some
> incompatibility between WLM and XP.
> I will now follow your advice and look more closely locally. I will
> report back but it may take me a couple of days to do so.

OK. You will probably have noticed in one of your other threads that David
Gould [MSFT] points out that the fix I mentioned won't go live until the
next release (i.e. Wave 4, version probably 15 of WLMail), so the 'first
day of the week' bug is still active and may be biting you. The problem
with working round it is the way the calendar synchronizes - changes to the
server copy eventually propagate to the local one, and vice versa. I can
only suggest the following, with no guarantee that it will work:

(a) Close down WLMail.
(b) Go to http://calendar.live.com and access the problem calendar.
(c) Delete all instances of the dodgy event - check a few months ahead that
they're all gone.
(d) Change the First Day of the Week option to Monday and save the change.
(e) Change it back to Sunday and save the change.
(f) Sign out of calendar.live.com and close down your browser.
(g) Start WLMail and wait for its initial processes to complete - watch the
right-hand end of the status bar.
(h) Select Calendar mode and see if the problematic event has gone away. If
it hasn't, wait an hour or two, then close down and restart WLMail again
(this will force another sync with the online calendar).
(i) Repeat (h) until the event is gone.
(j) Cross your fingers and re-insert the event on the right day.
--
Noel

Hello Noel,

Thank you very much for your patience and advice.

I have altered the FDOW to Sunday as you indicated, but there is no change
in the result.

I note your point regarding the Wave 4 version, and as my courses have now
finished until the beginning of February, I think my best course of action
is to wait for the new release.

As I am teaching techniques to a class of 10 each sitting at a computer,
and with me using an overhead projector to demonstrate, I really need to
have as simplified a process as is possible - or I run the risk of confusing
the students.

These classes are run by volunteers at no cost to the students, the cost
being borne by the local council and regional university as a service to the
older citizens, to help them keep up with email developments.

You have helped me a great deal.

Bert Wicks

"Bert Wicks" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Hello Noel,
>
> Thank you very much for your patience and advice.
>
> I have altered the FDOW to Sunday as you indicated, but there is no
> change in the result.

I was quite wrong to state in an earlier post that there was no system-wide
First Day of the Week in XP. There is, but it's not configurable in the UI
(i.e. in Control Panel). You'll find it in the registry at
HKCU\Control Panel\International\iFirstDayOfWeek. This varies according to
the locale, but in my case (England) it is set at 0, which I understand is
Monday. For Sunday, I'd have to change that to 6. There is also a default
setting (for new user accounts) at HKU\.DEFAULT\Control
Panel\International. I was surprised to see how many variables the locale
involves.

You might consider this change to see if it corrects the problem.

> I note your point regarding the Wave 4 version, and as my courses have
> now finished until the beginning of February, I think my best course of
> action is to wait for the new release.
>
> As I am teaching techniques to a class of 10 each sitting at a computer,
> and with me using an overhead projector to demonstrate, I really need to
> have as simplified a process as is possible - or I run the risk of
> confusing the students.

I've experienced the frustration of teaching IT to beginners. Ever had one
hit Alt-Left Shift by mistake and suddenly find himself writing Russian? Or
try to do a screen grab and end up with a violent high contrast display?

> These classes are run by volunteers at no cost to the students, the cost
> being borne by the local council and regional university as a service to
> the older citizens, to help them keep up with email developments.
>
> You have helped me a great deal.

Not as much as you're helping them, I'm sure. Keep up the good work.
--
Noel

Hello Noel,

Your dedication to this news group is outstanding.

I changed the HKCU/Control Panel/International/iFirstDayofWeek to 6 (it was
0), and the events record as they should.

May I wish you and yours a Very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2010.

Thanks from Australia.

Bert Wicks

"Bert Wicks" <> wrote in message
news:OLUn$...
> Hello Noel,
>
> Your dedication to this news group is outstanding.
>
> I changed the HKCU/Control Panel/International/iFirstDayofWeek to 6 (it
> was 0), and the events record as they should.
>
> May I wish you and yours a Very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2010.
>
> Thanks from Australia.
>
> Bert Wicks

Same to you - glad to know it worked for you. Enjoy your break until
courses start again!
--
Noel