DAVID E

Hey, guys-I wondered if you could help me resolve an email problem using Windows Live Mail. I've tried for two days and talked with Comcast no less than three hours trying to find a solution. They haven't been a lot of help and in fact, I even resorted to agreeing to pay $49.95 for their "Xfinity tech service" to try and find the problem remotely-that was the desperation.

It started Thursday when I got home from work and saw there were no emails in my inbox sent that day. I didn't pay much attention to it until the next day(Friday) I noticed still no new messages. I knew something was up so after trying all I knew I called Comcast. Initially it had something to do with my password which I couldn't remember since I never have to use a password-just click on the icon and my email client comes up. At any rate, I was turned over to someone else that went through the steps they have written down and in short, no dice. Finally yesterday they gave me a ticket number and number to call for more tech support...for a fee of course. He found all my emails were being forwarded to another email address that didn't even exist in that the suffix was .nett. I knew the person and remember once typing their name in but mistakenly gave it the .nett suffix instead of .net at the end. Of course the email didn't go through and I realized what I had done and started over with the proper .net. Why after 3-4 years that bogus address would end up anywhere is a mystery. Well, he deleted it, since it didn't exist.

Just prior to his calling me back, I was desperate and decided against better judgement, to do a system restore. Within a minute or two of it finishing is when Comcast tech called me. Here's the problem. After he deleted that bogus address we noticed I had no email in my Inbox. He was doing this on the website and nothing showed nor did it show in my Live Mail account. I can't say for sure whether he did something wrong or whether by some unknown alien deleted all my emails (about 200) from my inbox but I also checked and I had none in my Sent box, Drafts,Junk or Deleted items...zero, nothing showed. I had a lot of research and other emails in that Draft box that is now empty just like my Inbox. All my folders are there with their emails but every email gone from everywhere else.

What happened to all those emails? Can I get them back some way? The odd part is I decided to do a Search for a couple places I had received emails from and just typed it in, hit enter, and that email showed up?? So, apparently it must still be on the server somewhere or I couldn't have retrieved it. The thing is, I can't remember half of those emails and do a search on them. The tech told me he was turning in another ticket and sending it to the "International..." something or other, I didn't catch the entire name and they're suppose to contact me "withing 24-72 hours".

There was no problems until the other evening when I came home and noticed no emails. Noting was wrong the night before other than me updating some of Microsoft's wonderful updates and the only one I recall was an update for "IE 9". It apparently didn't take as when I checked later I still had IE 8.

Any guidance on this would be greatly appreciated as I'm against the wall now and don't think Comcast is going to be able to help. I still can't receive emails as I've sent myself a test message and it didn't come in-just like the one I tried yesterday. It shows up as Sent, but not received.

Just thought I'd drop by since it's been a blue moon or two since I've been around. I've delved into a couple of old hobbies that's kept me going for some months now in order to maintain my sanity and between that and 10 hour days you want to mostly crash after you get home. Vista has been such a good(compared to XP) OS for me there's really been little problem areas at all. I'm almost hesitant to try Windows 7 because of that. I have a few programs, like Nikon Capture NX2, that I don't know how well it and W7 would work together so, that's another item that's kept me away from the latest OS. I may just keep Vista for awhile yet. You all know how old timers hate change.

I've managed to stay away from hospitals and operation now for two years and that's a blessing. My brother died of bone cancer and now my sis has colon cancer and on chemo. She's doing good, however and it's shrunk the tumor to nearly nothing and it's only been a few months since this was discovered. I hope everyone is happy and healthy and loving life. It seems to go so quickly anymore.

Love your Poo avatar, Broni.

OK-I admit, I don't like this worth a flip. I like the last version better but if I can just change all this blackness so I can read it...where to change? It's actually lighter in the example than in reality on screen.

As you can see from this partial listing, I have some pretty old drivers. I don't know which ones I should bother with and what others I should update. There are at least 150 of these or more. Any suggestions as to what may need updating and what to look for in the rest of the list?

I also went into the Device Manager and without fail all those listed were deemed, "Windows has determined that the device software for your device is up to date." Five years old wouldn't be up to date I wouldn't think.