Tips and Ideas
Force Identity Logon
The Identities feature in OE has proven to be very popular. But many who use them
would like for OE always to ask for an Identity when the program starts. The
"official" procedure is that every user must always close OE by clicking File| Exit
and Log off Identity. This does indeed work, but is too easily forgotten, especially
since the X-Close Window button is so handy. Here are two ways to force OE always to
ask for an Identity when starting.
Using a script
- In Notepad, copy the lines below, and then save the file as
"IDforOE.vbs".
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
'Clear the values from the registry
WshShell.RegWrite "HKCU\Identities\Last Username", ""
WshShell.RegWrite "HKCU\Identities\Last User ID", ""
WshShell.RegWrite "HKCU\Identities\Default User ID", ""
WshShell.RegWrite "HKCU\Identities\Start As", ""
'Launch Outlook Express
WSHShell.Run "Msimn.exe"
You may also simply download this file by clicking below and saving the file to
your hard disk.
Download IDforOE.vbs
- Make a shortcut to the "IDforOE.vbs" file on your hard disk. Right-click the
shortcut and click Properties, then Change Icon. Browse to the OE executable file,
normally at
c:\program files\outlook express\msimn.exe
- Replace all your current shortcuts to OE with copies of the one you just
created.
- You might prefer to bypass the Logon dialogue by having a separate shortcut for
each Identity . In that case, make a separate script file for each Identity. Simply
edit the 4 "WshShell.RegWrite" lines in the script with the correct values for each
Identity. To determine those values, logon to each Identity in OE. Run Regedit.exe
and look at the values in this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities
Use copy/paste to put the correct values for the Identity into the script file,
like this:
WshShell.RegWrite "HKCU\Identities\Last Username", "Identity UserName"
WshShell.RegWrite "HKCU\Identities\Last User ID", "{GUID}"
WshShell.RegWrite "HKCU\Identities\Default User ID", "{GUID}"
WshShell.RegWrite "HKCU\Identities\Start As", "{GUID}"
where GUID is the long number used to designate an Identity.
You can now make shortcuts to each script file, each with a unique name and
icon.
Using a batch file
- In Notepad, copy the lines below, and then save the file as
"ClearID.reg".
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities]
"Last Username"=""
"Last User ID"=""
"Default User ID"=""
"Start As"=""
You may also simply download this file by clicking below and saving the file to
your hard disk.
Download ClearID.reg
- Still in Notepad, create a batch file named "OELogon.bat" containing the lines
below. If the path to your saved *.reg file contains blank spaces, enclose the
entire path in double quotes:
regedit /s "C:\<your path here>\CLEARID.REG"
"C:\Program Files\Outlook Express\MSIMN.EXE"
- Right-click and drag the "OELogon.bat" just a bit, then select "Create
Shortcut(s) here".
- Right-click the new shortcut, select Properties, then click on the Program
tab.
- In the "Working" field, enter the path to the folder you want OE to use as the
default location for "Insert" functions. If the path contains blank spaces, enclose
the entire path in double quotes, like this:
"c:\My Documents\Some Folder"
- In the Run: drop-down box, select "Minimized".
- Check the box for "Close on Exit".
- Click The "Change Icon" button and browse to "C:\Program Files\Outlook
Express\MSIMN.EXE", or use another icon if you prefer. Click OK, OK to close the
Properties dialogue.
- Replace all your current shortcuts to OE with copies of the one you just
created.
To run OE, just click the new shortcut. There will be a very slight delay, during
which you will see a taskbar button for the minimized batch file. The first line of
the batch merges the contents of the registry file, without any prompts. That simply
replaces whatever values were there with null strings (""). The final line of the
batch launches OE, which checks the registry and sees that there is no default
Identity, no Start With Identity, and no Last Used Identity. It therefore displays
the Log On to Identity dialogue. Select the Identity you want, and OE continues to
load.
This means that you can now close OE just like you do any other Windows app, without
worrying about the next instance of OE using the same Identity. If MSN Messenger is
running, it will automatically log off whatever Identity it is using, and
automatically logon to the one you just chose.
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