Computerworld

NAV-Eudora conflict solved, almost

Further to my difficulties with a conflict between Eudora and Norton Anti-Virus last month, I can report that the problem has still not been finally solved.

Further to my difficulties with a conflict between Eudora and Norton Anti-Virus last month (see The dummies' guide), I can report that the problem has still not been finally solved.

I received and installed my copy of Norton Anti-Virus 2002, thoughtfully provided by Symantec Australia. Unlike NAV 2000, it detected the copy of PC-cillin installed by the PC’s maker and asked if I wanted to remove it.

I decided not to, as I might have to turn off NAV’s email protection to get my user and server-names the way my ISP wants them, and I want something to stop incoming nasties at the “front gate” where possible.

The install was straightforward, and with email protection still there, I closed and re-opened Eudora a couple of times. The user-name and POP server name were still being changed at every re-opening – username to username/servername, and servername to localhost.

NAV does this because it sets up its own mailserver to receive, check and send on all outgoing and incoming email messages. This is the "localhost".

I removed email protection. That process was simple, with, this time, an obvious checkbox in the “options” panel. Sure enough, NAV stopped changing the names. For a while. More recently, though, it's begun to change them again -- though not at every launch of Eudora; just now and again when you least expect it.

However, installing the same combination on a laptop went smoothly, and I saw the way it was supposed to work.The progress meter on a large attached file to an outgoing email went up very quickly at first, because it was mailing only to "localhost".

Then a second meter appeared -- on an orange panel; rather a pleasant change from standard battleship grey -- as localhost sent the file, more slowly, to my ISP's server.

It might have been a good idea if the Symantec help operator had said "do you see a grey progress panel, then an orange one?" Then we would have established the fault was deeper than I thought.

It does not do the right thing on my desktop, whether email protection is turned on or not. A reinstall of Eudora has no effect.

I begin to suspect a botched interaction with the ISP, Paradise, but it does not consider users' email clients are its business. The company is concerned only with transmission of the information, I was told.

Bell is a Wellington-based reporter for Computerworld. Send email to Stephen Bell. Send letters for publication in Computerworld to Computerworld Letters.