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Messages - yDecode

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1
yDecode General Discussion / Perfect replacement for Outlook Express and Windows Live Mail
« on: March 07, 2011, 06:04:31 PM »
If you want new Outlook Express and Windows Live Mail replacement, you've just found it! It is called OE Classic!

As you may know Outlook Express and Windows Live Mail are now both discontinued (Outlook Express - April 8, 2014 and Windows Live Mail - January 10, 2017) and no longer available for download. They also don't work on Windows 10 and don't properly work on Windows 8 and some older Windows.

So you need a modern replacement?

Well, you are not alone - we were there too. And we created a new product called OE Classic (www.oeclassic.com) which is now a perfect replacement for Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail users, and not just replacement but also a significant improvement. And of course, it works on all modern Windows that support Unicode - Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 and also - any future Windows. And it has been in development for the last 7 years (since 2010).

How does it look like so far?


Got you interested?

Visit OE Classic website at www.oeclassic.com and download OE Classic now!

2
yDecode General Discussion / yDecode 1.72 released (important security update)
« on: June 22, 2010, 08:30:40 PM »
yDecode 1.72 has been released.

This version brings support for updated SSL libraries and it is recommended you upgrade if you use SSL-enabled news server.

A problem with the SSL protocol has been identified and marked as CVE-2009-3555. In short, it enables man-in-the-middle attacker to insert data into SSL sessions by sending an unauthenticated request that is processed retroactively by a server in a post-renegotiation context. In other words - it enables third person to position himself between you and your secured news server possibly compromising the data transferred between the server and your computer.

Furthermore, TLS extension has been developed and marked as RFC 5746 which fixes this issue and introduces new, secure renegotiation.

yDecode implements these by disabling older renegotiation method and implements the new, secure one. At the moment, not all the servers support RFC 5746 extension but eventually all of them will be updated. But with yDecode you already have a fix for this issue today which also means yDecode is the only secure yEnc decoder available at the moment.

Also, we made a small improvement in activation which should affect only a minor number of users.

Note: Updated SSL libraries are in the demo version installation file (ydec172.exe) so you have to update the demo as well before installing full version.

Download demo on download page and full version on registered user page.

Changes since last release:

yDecode 1.72:

  • SSL update - fixes renegotiation security issue (CVE-2009-3555) and implements new secure renegotiation based on RFC5746
  • improvements in activation (now capable of detecting proxy issues) and informative error message

3
yDecode General Discussion / yDecode 1.71 released (improved installer)
« on: April 21, 2010, 07:21:24 PM »
yDecode 1.71 has been released.

Due to request by some users we updated the installer to install icons for All Users rather than Current User. So now, if you install yDecode from one user account it will create icons in Start Menu / Programs for all other users so if you use it in multi-user environment all users see Start menu icons. Desktop icon however is still created for the current user only. If you need desktop shortcut you can easily create one from Start menu shortcuts anyway.

Under single user environment this change in the installer won't be visible at all (unless you like to dig into system folders) - everything will look practically identical as before.

The program version has also been updated to reflect the change.

Download demo on download page and full version on registered user page.

Changes since last release:

yDecode 1.71:

  • changed shortcut creation to All Users ("Programs" icons) in installer

4
yDecode General Discussion / yDecode 1.70 released (Mozilla Thunderbird support)
« on: February 26, 2010, 12:37:30 AM »
yDecode 1.70 has been released.

yDecode wizard for automatic configuration (Auto-Config button) and Test Config now support Mozilla Thunderbird. It also supports Mozilla Thunderbird profiles and searches all accounts under all your profiles similar to Outlook Express identities.



We encountered some limitations with Mozilla Thunderbird so I'm outlining them here.

First of all,  Mozilla Thunderbird does not support having more than one account with identical settings. So, you cannot set 2 accounts to have localhost as a server name. Therefore we had to limit our wizard to allow configuring only one account as localhost (of course without affecting the multi-account functionality for other newsreaders). If you use more than one accounts you will be able to auto-configure only one of them using the wizard.

First version could auto-configure all accounts and warned you when you wanted to auto-configure more than one account (offered Yes/No choice) - but if you allowed that to happen ("Yes"), these accounts would disappear in Mozilla Thunderbird. So we figured it would be the best for a beginner to avoid any hacks and limit wizard to only one account.

If however you are advanced user, you probably don't need the wizard for auto-configuring your accounts. In this case there are 2 ways how you can overcome Mozilla Thunderbird limitation of having only one account with unique settings.

First method is to set one account to localhost and another to 127.0.0.1 - these are essentially the same thing. This way you can have 2 accounts but no more. Second method involves that you create new profiles - now each profile can have 2 accounts like in the first method. But of course this means you'll have to switch profiles. To create profile go to start menu and run Mozilla like this: thunderbird.exe -ProfileManager

Most users will not need more than a single newsgroups account so they should be just fine with the wizard as it is. But if you do have some suggestions regarding this - feel free to let us know - we're open to good suggestions!

Download demo on download page and full version on registered user page.

Changes since last release:

yDecode 1.70:

  • added Mozilla Thunderbird support in Auto-Config and Test Config
  • minor bug fixes and improvements

5
yDecode General Discussion / Re: Thunderbird extensions
« on: February 21, 2010, 02:47:20 PM »
Well, yDecode is not a plugin in a classic meaning of that word. It is more like an intermediate program that decodes yEnc and multiparts and then sends it to any newsreader (Thunderbird included).

Even though this is not a strictly yDecode related issue, let me see if I can help you here.

It looks to me that you're trying to solve the issue the wrong way - you are trying to clean up the mess you did over the years with another plugin. How many those filtering rules you have that you cannot clean them up that easily? Hundreds? Thousands?

If you have so many of them, you must be doing something very wrong and there must be better way to do it - filters are not meant to be used in such great numbers. They are meant to sort out the important messages from unimportant and stuff like that. And for that you don't need more than a couple of them - like 10 or 20 maximum - which are easily manageable.

They are not actually sorted by date but by the way you added them. Yes, TB does not offer you a possibility to sort them visually while maintaining their proper order. While I'm not sure why is this the case, I can understand that reordering them (using up/down buttons) could mangle their functionality because the order may be significant (some filters may need to run before others).

If you are looking for a way to handle your 'spam' emails, it would be far better to simply use built in tools for doing that - SpamAssassin for example. It works quite well after training for a little bit. And then use the filters just to sort out the emails in specific folders - for example you may want to sort your friends emails to a certain folder and your business emails to different folder. Spammers often change their "from" address and this is not a reliable way to filter them out. SpamAssassin uses Bayesian filters and also online checks to see whether the message is a spam or not - and in most cases it works very well - of course a few messages may end up in 'Spam' folder but a few messages is normal - you should check them anyway.

You may also use different email address for your friends and another for your business - and then make a filter to distinguish between the email where you received the email and move it to specified folder.

In any case, you don't need a lot of filters and they are probably not meant to be used the way you are doing it.

Sometimes it is the best to have a fresh start - my best advice would be to clean up all of these filters (depends how many you have) and then start over with the above tips in mind. Don't overuse filters - they are not meant for that.

I hope this helps you - feel free to follow up with any additional info. Note: Please don't post any links to websites - we don't allow these here. Please read forum rules for more info.

6
yDecode General Discussion / yDecode 1.69 released (Windows Live Mail support in Test Config)
« on: January 30, 2010, 02:14:56 PM »
yDecode 1.69 has been released.

Errors and reporting in Test Config are now improved. It supports Windows Live Mail as well. The messages that Test Config can report are basically grouped into 3 categories and color-coded for easier understanding.

INFO message - tells you about something related to tests
OK message - indicates that the test has passed
ERROR message - indicates a possible problem (usually, you can use Auto-Config button to fix it).

Sample output:

Quote
INFO: Found 1 Outlook Express accounts.

ERROR: Outlook Express account 'Account' will not decode yEnc or work with yDecode.
Account settings - Server: 'invalid.server.name' - Port: 123 - SSL: No
Required settings - Server: 'localhost' - Port: 119 - SSL: No
Use Auto-Config button to configure this account automatically. Look at troubleshooting section of the help file for more info on this error.

INFO: Found 1 Windows Live Mail accounts.

OK: Windows Live Mail account 'My News Server' configured OK
Account settings - Server: 'localhost' - Port = 119 - SSL: No

INFO: Checking server connection availability. Please wait...

Download demo on download page and full version on registered user page.

Changes since last release:

yDecode 1.69:

  • added Windows Live Mail support in Test Config and improved reporting

7
yDecode General Discussion / yDecode 1.68 released (important release notes)
« on: January 29, 2010, 01:46:34 AM »
yDecode 1.68 has been released.

Although this is named as a minor update, the update is all but minor. There are a lot of improvements to the code and only the most important changes are outlined below. Following are a few additional notes on these.

First of all, the way how the settings are stored has changed. We could not avoid it because we wanted to add new features and to make the program more compatible with various Windows versions. Therefore, full uninstall is highly recommended - mainly to avoid errors on uninstall and also to avoid having some of the files kept on your disk after the uninstallation has finished (as uninstaller has also changed).

To support users that switched to Windows 7 we added Windows Live Mail support in Auto-Config. yDecode worked before with Windows Live Mail too as it is compatible with a number of newsreaders, but this should make things easier for all of us. Older version could mangle Windows Mail accounts because it didn't support Unicode and it did a simple conversion of data to plain text. It worked properly on all accounts that used English-only but mangled all non-English characters so if you're somewhere in the US it probably worked well for you but maybe didn't for someone in Europe for example. Anyway, with full Unicode support this version fixes that and also improves accounts detection with both Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail so you can now easily configure them for our yEnc decoder.

Success and error messages that are reported at the end of the Auto-Config wizard are carefully picked and written to make them easy to understand and as much informative as they can be. There is also wider range of these messages and they are not as generalized as they used to be but much more specific to inform you about the exact state you have on your system.

Here is how the new wizard looks like (use Auto-Config button to start it):



Download demo on download page and full version on registered user page.

Note for users of Windows 95/98/Me: yDecode no longer works on Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows Me due to lack of Unicode support on these older operating systems. Microsoft no longer supports them (support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006) so it makes no sense to maintain new yDecode versions for these systems. Please upgrade to at least Windows 2000 (we recommend Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7) to use this new version or download yDecode 1.63 here which works well on Windows 95/98/Me. We still offer limited user support for yDecode 1.63 but generally we don't recommend it. Installer will warn you if you're installing this on Windows 95/98/Me but will not stop you from doing so (we don't like programs to be "too smart" and fail to offer human selected choice where that could be required).

Changes since last release:

yDecode 1.68:

  • added a wizard for selection of supported newsreaders (click on Auto-Config)
  • added support for Windows Live Mail and Outlook Express identities (older version supported only "main identity")
  • fixed a number of shortcomings and bugs in relation to Auto-Config (support for Unicode in accounts, bugs with account detection etc.)
  • improved reporting and very carefully picked error messages for Auto-Config for easier understanding of wizard success or error messages
  • added large program icon compatible with Windows Vista and Windows 7
  • a lot of code refactoring to prepare for new features
  • program settings are now saved in current user local settings directory instead of program installation directory on all Windows
  • some other setting values have changed to add new features
  • due to setting changes full uninstall is highly recommended before installing this version instead of just doing an upgrade

Download demo on download page and full version on registered user page.

8
yDecode General Discussion / Re: yDecode with Windows 7 and Windows Live Mail
« on: January 11, 2010, 04:06:00 AM »
UPDATE 2010-01-29: New version of yDecode (1.68 and later) now comes with build in Auto-Config wizard that can configure Windows Live Mail automatically, therefore we recommend you use the wizard to simplify this process. You can still configure it manually by following this tutorial but it is no longer necessary.




The very next release (in a couple of days) will make configuration of yDecode automatic with Windows Live Mail so that will definitely make it easier to use.
yDecode has been tested on Windows Live Mail by a number of users so it should work (I also use it myself with Windows Live Mail since version 1.63).

If the only setting you changed like this guide describes is Server Name - then most probably the issue you describe is either in:

  • yDecode not running at the moment you tried to connect (you closed the program by clicking "X" button to close window). You must remember to run it either before reading newsgroups or on system startup (Options - "Run on system startup") - Not running yDecode will result in message you describe - Windows Live Mail cannot connect to the Internet, possibly because an antivirus or firewall program won't allow it. Make sure any antivirus or firewall programs on your computer allow Windows Live Mail (wlmail.exe) to access the Internet. so make sure yDecode is running. Note that this is a generic error message that describes a wide range of possible problems and is not related to yDecode in particular.
  • The other reason may be that you had yDecode running but your newsreader is configured to use SSL or incorrect "Local Port" value in yDecode. Port setting in Windows Live Mail must be identical to "Local Port" value in yDecode. To be sure - uncheck SSL in Windows Live Mail and set the port to 119 (both settings on Advanced tab) and also set Local Port in yDecode to same value - 119. Most news servers use port 119 so that is the safe value to use. If your server requires SSL, you can set it in yDecode by checking the SSL box but the connection from Windows Live Mail to yDecode is not encrypted (and also encryption is not required).
  • If hosts file got corrupted (can happen due to virus activity for example) then simply replace localhost with 127.0.0.1 (has identical effect).

You may put settings exactly as these screen-shots suggest:





If the problem is more difficult than that I'll be glad to assist you personally - simply go to our "contact" page and write an email with the details and I'll reply quickly. In case of more difficulties we can also chat via messenger to solve the problem faster.

9
yDecode General Discussion / yDecode 1.67 released (bug fixes)
« on: January 02, 2010, 01:43:24 AM »
yDecode 1.67 has been released.

This minor update corrects very important bug that caused multipart messages to be decoded incorrectly. It only surfaced recently when we tested yDecode with Windows Live Mail. It probably also affects Windows Mail users as well. Even though this problem is not visible in Outlook Express due to the fact it handles decoded messages differently than Windows Live Mail it is still a problem if you for example upgrade to Windows Live Mail and forget to upgrade yDecode as well. So, we highly recommend everyone using older version to upgrade.

Download demo on download page and full version on registered user page.

Note for users of Windows 95/98/Me: yDecode no longer works on Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows Me due to lack of Unicode support on these older operating systems. Microsoft no longer supports them (support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006) so it makes no sense to maintain new yDecode versions for these systems. Please upgrade to at least Windows 2000 (we recommend Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7) to use this new version or download yDecode 1.63 here which works well on Windows 95/98/Me. We still offer limited user support for yDecode 1.63 but generally we don't recommend it.

Changes since last release:

yDecode 1.67:

- fixed bug which caused multiparts to be decoded incorrectly when data packets were split the way yDecode didn't expect

10
yDecode General Discussion / Upgrades to yDecode forum
« on: December 24, 2009, 03:57:36 PM »
We upgraded yDecode forum, tweaked it a little bit and refreshed it with the new theme.

Hopefully, now you will find it easier to use!

11
yDecode General Discussion / yDecode 1.65 released (Unicode, DPI-aware support...)
« on: December 09, 2009, 06:41:17 PM »
yDecode 1.65 full version for registered users have been released.

yDecode is now even more compatible with more recent version of Windows like Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Also some minor functionality has been improved or simplified. If you wonder why there was never version 1.64 - it was an internal release and we added new features in the meantime so we skipped it. Read the list of changes for full details.

Note for users of Windows 95/98/Me: yDecode no longer works on Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows Me due to lack of Unicode support on these older operating systems. Microsoft no longer supports them (support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006) so it makes no sense to maintain new yDecode versions for these systems. Please upgrade to at least Windows 2000 (we recommend Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7) to use this new version or download yDecode 1.63 here which works well on Windows 95/98/Me. We still offer limited user support for yDecode 1.63 but generally we don't recommend it.

Changes since last release:

yDecode 1.65:

- added multipart cache expiration time as an option (recommended value is 3 days to avoid slowdowns of your system)
- yDecode is now Unicode compatible (more compatible with recent Windows e.g. Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7)
- yDecode is now DPI-aware (resizes properly with DPI setting change, also improves Windows compatibility)
- updated info in About window for easier contact
- remote port is now auto-adjusted to default values when SSL checkbox changes (you can still modify it afterwards)
- yDecode no longer works on Windows 95/98/Me due to lack of Unicode support on these systems. Minimum required version now is Windows 2000 (or later)

12
yDecode General Discussion / yDecode and Norton firewall problem (and a solution)
« on: October 23, 2009, 08:46:57 PM »
Due to some people having issues with Norton firewall and not knowing how to set it up to allow yDecode to work properly we added this issue to the online troubleshooting help file.

Take a look here (question #6):
http://www.ydecode.com/help/manual_troubleshooting.htm#q006

Usually when you get an error like "unable to connect to server" and everything seems to be configured properly like - there is no error in "test config" this could be possible cause if you have Norton installed. Try and let us know if you have some tips to add.

13
yDecode General Discussion / Re: Unusual error on startup screen
« on: October 02, 2009, 02:13:04 PM »
I am not sure what exactly you mean by "yDecode banner" and what is the "home screen"? Did you mean "yDecode window" or part of yDecode window? Is home screen a "Windows desktop"?

Furthermore yDecode has no "maximize" icon. It only has "minimize" and "restore" functions. Please explain in more details what exactly happens. If possible please contact me on email (help and contact page) so you may send me a screenshot of what happens - if it is a problem we can fix.

If you are using yDecode with "run on system startup" option checked (under "options" tab) please make sure you also check "start minimized". If you've checked it please try to uncheck it to see if that makes any changes during the startup.

We would like to reproduce this behavior on Vista but it does not happen on our test machines. We always test our software with operating system that has no additional software installed to avoid the possibility of third-party programs influencing the behavior of our programs. Perhaps you installed some software that may influence how yDecode behaves on startup?

14
yDecode General Discussion / yDecode with Windows 7 and Windows Live Mail
« on: September 11, 2009, 08:46:13 PM »
UPDATE 2010-01-29: New version of yDecode (1.68 and later) now comes with build in Auto-Config wizard that can configure Windows Live Mail automatically, therefore we recommend you use the wizard to simplify this process. You can still configure it manually by following this tutorial but it is no longer necessary.




We just tested yDecode with Windows 7 and it works properly. We also tested our other software and it also appears to work correctly on Windows 7. Windows 7 feels like "Windows Vista Second Edition" to me.

IMPORTANT UPDATE 2009-09-18: Do not run yDecode in compatibility mode (e.g. Windows XP SP3) on Vista or Windows 7 as it will cause problems with its operation. yDecode is already compatible with Vista and Windows 7 - both 32 and 64 bit versions and does not need such tweaks!

First thing you should know is that Windows 7 ships without built in mail and news reader like it used to be the case with earlier versions like XP (Outlook Express) and Vista (Windows Mail). If you search the help files it will also tell you about this and recommend you install Windows Live Mail.

Basically, Windows Live Mail is a way to go with Windows 7 if you want the same functionality you had with Outlook Express and Windows Mail. Windows Live Mail is nearly identical to Outlook Express and Windows Mail except for few minor details in the user interface. It has a built in newsreader and also works on other Windows than Windows 7 so you can use it on XP or Vista as well. It can import settings, emails and newsgroups from Windows Mail and from Outlook Express. If you are used to Outlook Express or Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail transition should be a no-brainer but have in mind that a few things are different and you will need to get used to it.

Download it here: http://download.live.com/wlmail

Now on to yDecode - it works but in the current version the automatic configuration does not (it detects "Windows Mail"). However, note that auto-config and test-config buttons in yDecode are not essential to yDecode operation they are just for helping you doing the configuration automatically but do not affect how the program operates - with manual configuration it works properly - all you need is to set your newsreader (WLM for example) server setting to localhost - like this:





You must keep your own "this server requires me to log in" setting unchanged not uncheck it (like on above screenshot) if your server needs username/password. My server happens not to need them so the settings on the screenshot are unchecked and empty username/password.

The only thing to modify really is to put localhost under the server tab server name.

You will not have account detected in "Test Config" in yDecode but the above will work. In the next release which will follow shortly yDecode will probably get a support for Windows Live Mail auto-configuration as well.

15
yDecode General Discussion / yDecode and Thunderbird 2 issue (and a solution)
« on: August 19, 2009, 05:53:42 PM »
It appears that Thunderbird 2.x has issues with yDecode multipart decoder.

It downloads messages twice unlike Outlook Express or Windows Mail and that appears to "confuse" yDecode and Thunderbird with it so the multipart message/image etc. don't show up as fully decoded but rather instead it shows only a first part of the messsage (even though yDecode downloaded the rest of the parts as well).

Fortunately there is a simple solution - so if you are using Thunderbird simply upgrade to 3.0 (currently beta 3) which seems to have this bug fixed and downloads messages only once as it is supposed to.

If you have any additional questions or comments feel free to contact us.

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