Just remember to export a copy of your entire registry to use as a backup before you start tinkering with it. That way, you've got a pretty good chance of restoring things if you manage to hose something.

Since you're planning on doing a brand new XP install on the new hard drive anyway, I would recommend trying to get this particular program to work first. That way, if things do go unfixably kaplooey, you only lost the time it took to install XP.

Just remember to export a copy of your entire registry to use as a backup before you start tinkering with it.

Yeah. I was teasing about the "nothing bad can happen while tinkering with the registry, right?"

Since you're planning on doing a brand new XP install on the new hard drive anyway, I would recommend trying to get this particular program to work first. That way, if things do go unfixably kaplooey, you only lost the time it took to install XP.

I already did the XP install. That was a couple of days ago.

This is only somewhat related, but if you're setting up a virtual XP machine on a Windows, Mac or Linux machine using Parallels, on the host machine the virtual machine is just a single file. So if you make backups of that file, you could try multiple different things on the virtual machine and if they don't work out or if you hose the machine, you can just delete the file and use one of your backups.

I've been using the mail client that came with OS X. So far, it's pretty good--I only have two gripes. Firstly, it doesn't let me remove messages from the server on a message by message basis (it has to be set for the whole account and happens when mail is checked). More importantly, though, is that the signature function is a bit jacked. I have signatures set up for just one of my accounts, but it insists on putting signatures on all my emails--annoying enough, but the Signature field in the header is set to none and it still does it! Reselecting none (it's the only option) makes it disappear, but I don't always remember to do that.

What other good mail clients are there for OS X?

I use gmail by preference and Notes when forced to by work, but I know a lot of people (all platforms) love Thunderbird.

I use gmail as a repository, but the default client is currently handling 5 POP accounts and one IMAP one, so I think I need a thick client.

Off to look at Thunderbird.

Part of me thinks I should get off of Eudora on the PC, despite having used it for...shit, a fuck of a long time, or perhaps because I've been using it that long.

ita, I just recently switched to Thunderbird from using Eudora for yonks, and I mostly like it. A few tiny annoyances, but overall it's good. I'm not using it as heftily as you are, though.

What annoyances, Ailleann? My PC install of Eudora is handling even more accounts, and I have a shitload of filtering--that migration is going to take me having fallen in a lot of love to move.

I also have some mailboxes saved from some really early installs of Eudora (I moved there from Pegasus Mail, which...wow, I wonder if that's still around), and I open them from time to time out of nostalgia.

I have a data packrat problem.

eta: Well, there's my first irritation with Thunderbird. It's not offering to import any of my settings, etc from the default mail client. It's the OS's default mail client! Grr.

I have a data packrat problem.

Ohhh, this is so me. Mine are really tiny things... I'm using it for one account, that doesn't get a lot of traffic anymore, so I don't have filters or anything. The mailboxes converted well, but the address book looked a little wonky when I attempted to convert. It may require a little manual conversion. My biggest thing is how quickly it qualifies a message as "read," and how when reading it automatically moves to the next message and marks it read before I even grok who it's from. Tiny, but incredibly annoying.

Actually, all things considered, if I could have I probably would have stayed with Eudora. I just didn't want to go through all the futzing that was cropping up when I switched machines, for an email that I'll probably phase out in the next six months.

Okay, I'm thinking Thunderbird for OS X will be a non-starter for me.

No option to import standard Mail data was bad enough, but it doesn't look like it's tied to OS X's address book. I am so not maintaining another address book on this computer--the OS X one is updated from my PDA (and therefore from my PC) whenever I synch up.

I do wish my PC email app used the Palm address book. That'd rock.

Am I blanching and turning away from Thunderbird too early? Is there address book synchronisation (not import) somewhere I'm missing it.

Unrelatedly: Is there a way in Firefox to type in a URL and not have it saved in the list under the location bar?