OT: Thunderbird on two Windows boxes

[Joseph Sinclair]

Sooner or later, someone is going to want to take that laptop on a trip, and at
that point using file sharing for email will break, possible very badly.
Instead, it's better to set the two up as cooperating clients.

An easy way to do this:
	Set Thunderbird on the desktop to leave messages on the server for (say) 10 days.
	Shut down Thunderbird on the desktop.
	Copy the mail profile from the desktop to the laptop.
	Start Thunderbird back up on the desktop.
	Start Thunderbird on the laptop, make sure it uses the profile you copied over.
	Change the settings on the laptop to never remove messages from the server.

As long as she logs into the desktop and laptop both every 10 days or so, they'll both
download the same messages and should stay pretty much in sync.  If there is a time
when the laptop isn't used for more than 10 days, you'll have the option to simply
repeat the setup process above to re-sync them.  Since only the desktop will ever
remove files from the server, and it leaves them for a while before doing so,
both systems can get the same messages, but the desktop remains authoritative
in the event of conflict.

BTW, you can also copy the profile to Linux and set the Linux system as the authoritative
system that can remove mail from the server, and keep a mail reader (even Thunderbird) running
all the time on Linux.  Then, if the Windows system(s) are compromised or require their annual
re-install the profile on Linux is available to restore all that email without concern.  This
assumes you have a Linux system set up to run in Linux all the time, if you don't, then this
doesn't work (and you probably should to look into getting a Linux-only system ;} )

I would strongly recommend against trying to share the mailbox filesystem because,
besides the no access when away from home problem, with Thunderbird running on two
machines against the same mailboxes, it could easily corrupt the mbox files, since
it's just not designed to do that.  You're getting away with it on the dual-boot because
it's not possible to have both open at the same time.  With two machines, sooner or later
they will both be open at the same time, and, if it isn't detected, the result could be
substantial data loss.  Thunderbird does try to detect this, but it's pretty easy to
bypass it accidentally, and the result can be ugly if that happens.

==Joseph++

vodhner at cox.net wrote:
> My wife has been using Thunderbird for her email on her XP desktop.
> 
> Now she also has a Vista laptop, mainly for use in the living room.  She will have file sharing with her desktop.
> 
> I know I can configure the laptop's copy of Thunderbird to not delete downloaded messages, but that doesn't give the laptop access to email that is stored on her desktop.
> 
> On my own dual-boot machine, I share my mailbox (on a FAT32 drive) between XP and Linux.  That works OK.  So if I left her mailbox on the desktop I suppose I could tweak Thunderbird on the laptop so that it shared the desktop's mail folders, remotely.  I'm not sure if she'd have to shut down Thunderbird on one box in order to open it on the other, whether Windows might refuse simultaneous access.
> 
> I'm not interested in running my own IMAP server or anything along that line -- it will continue to be POP from Cox.
> 
> Would that be the way to do it?  Comments?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Vic
> 
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