Mail Notification on Windows welcome screen
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Microsoft's knowledge base. The
article number is 304148. You can click on the article to go to
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you can read the article below.
IMPORTANT:
This article contains information about modifying the registry.
Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make
sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem
occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the
registry.
If you do not want to touch the registry and you have Windows XP.
Microsoft has PowerToys software that will do this. The software is
called TweakUI.EXE and it is on the PowerToys page. Click the link
below to access it
Microsoft PowerToys (This is a link to an
external website. Therefore I cannot guarantee that this link will
stay valid. If it doesn't work, you will need to go to Microsoft.com
to see if they still have this program available)
Click
here for instructions on backing up the registry
The Welcome Screen is displayed by default on Windows XP Home
Edition and Windows XP Professional-based computers that are not
members of a domain. Under your name on the Welcome screen, there is
a hyperlink that indicates the number of unread e-mail messages,
which, if you click it, reveals which account the messages are from,
and how many each e-mail provider contains. For example, if you have
three unread e-mail messages, and you click the hyperlink under your
name, you see the following information where UserID is your user
name for the corresponding e-mail account:
UserID@msn.com (2)
UserID@hotmail.com (1)
The hyperlink is only
displayed if you have an e-mail client running on your computer that
is capable of updating the Welcome screen. Currently, there are only
two applications that support this feature, Microsoft Outlook
Express and Windows Messenger.
WARNING:
If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious
problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system.
Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result
from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your
own risk.
This e-mail hyperlink is only displayed if the e-mail client that
your computer is running populates the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft \Windows\CurrentVersion\
UnreadMail
You cannot disable this feature in the user interface nor can you
configure the Welcome Screen to populate the unread message count
from only a particular e-mail application. For example, you do not
want your e-mail messages from UserID@hotmail.com displayed on the
Welcome screen. However, to work around this behavior, you can set
the permissions on the following registry key to read-only for the
System account:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft \Windows\CurrentVersion\
UnreadMail
When the application attempts to update the registry key as new mail
arrives, it will not have sufficient permission to do so and the
Welcome Screen will not be updated.
-
Access REGEDIT (The page will open in a separate window)
-
Double-click HKEY_CURRENT_USER
-
Double-click Software
-
Double-click Microsoft
-
Double-click Windows
-
Double-click CurrentVersion
-
Double-click UnreadMail
-
Right click the UnreadMail folder
-
Click Permissions
-
Click the System account
-
Check the Deny checkbox for full control
-
Click OK
-
Close Registry Editor
To block only one of the e-mail clients from updating the Welcome screen, permissions to the registry key under "UnreadMail" specifying the e-mail account must have System permissions set to read-only. For example, you have the two following registry keys under the UnreadMail key:
UserID@msn.com
UserID@hotmail.com
To block UserID@msn.com from being displayed on the screen and to
retain UserID@hotmail.com, set the permissions on the UserID@msn.com
key:
-
Access REGEDIT (The page will open in a separate window)
-
Double-click HKEY_CURRENT_USER
-
Double-click Software
-
Double-click Microsoft
-
Double-click Windows
-
Double-click CurrentVersion
-
Double-click UnreadMail
-
Click the e-mail provider that you do not want to be displayed on the Welcome screen.
-
Right click the folder
-
Click Permissions
-
Click the System account
-
Check the Deny check box for full control
-
Click OK
-
Close Registry Editor