Outlook Express 6 on WinXP and this list

Wed Apr 6 15:15:34 PDT 2016

On Wed Apr 6 01:31:11 BST 2016, I wrote:

> To all list members: Please refrain from the obvious
> suggestion d4x should either upgrade to a MS supported
> Windows version or change to an Open Source OS;
> this is not the intent of my post!

On Wed Apr 6 13:12:40 BST 2016, David Woodhouse replied:

> Here's a nickel, kid. Get yourself a real computer.

... Sadly, I am no more a kid; and despite my plea,
you couldn't resist it, could you?
... And I have to agree with C E Macfarlane that I found
your tone there slightly offending...
  I try my best to be civil in my list posts, I do
acknowledge I may have had my bad moments
during the five years I frequent this list, but in
general I try not to offend the other person...
Remember, I started this thread as a service
to a fellow user of GiP (in the UK) who,
for some reason, can't access this list...

To the issue at hand now - you wrote:

> Your message of Tue, 5 Apr 2016 23:45:59 +0300 was rejected
> because of missing/broken threading headers -
> you were attempting to reply to a list message,
> but your own message lacked the required In-Reply-To: /
> References: headers which contain the threading information.

Well, that was exactly what I was trying to do -
I may be at fault here, but you were so quick to
jail me without parole. The way I attempted to do that
in my (now decommissioned) WinXP box was the
same way I have always done it in my Vista laptop,
and it always worked! But some background is
needed - it can be found in this Apr 2011 thread:

http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/get_iplayer/2011-April/001240.html

I wrote:

(2011-04-02)
> I am basically reading the mailing list from the archive (it comes in two
> incarnations, i.e.
> http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/get_iplayer/2011-April/date.html &
> http://www.mail-archive.com/get_iplayer@lists.infradead.org/maillist.html),
> I have both formats arranged by "date")
> (snip)
> I am using Windows Mail, which is the native e-mail client of my OS
> (WinVista SP2 x86), when I send an e-mail to 
> get_iplayer at lists.infradead.org
> my mail starts a new thread...
> (snip)
> For this specific mail, I selected the e-mail & thread Shevek started from
> within the archive (version 1) & clicked on the e-mail address on top,
> underneath the subject...

... and you replied:

(2011-04-02)
> This time it was correct; I suspect you used *my* archive. If you go to
> http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/get_iplayer/2011-March/001193.html
> and let your mouse hover over the address at the top, you'll see that
> the mailto: url contains '...&In-Reply-To=<AANLkTi...' which means that
> your mailer *does* get the threading information right in your reply.
>
> But the mailto: URL you get when you use the button on mail-archive.com
> is broken; it doesn't include the In-Reply-To: header. And it even
> bypasses my 'Re: in Subject but no References' filter, because it
> doesn't include 'Re:' in the subject either!
>
> As long as you use *my* archive to reply, and not the broken one on
> mail-archive.com, you should be fine.

... So, to recap, on my obsolete XP desktop (it no longer stores any
list messages, they have been backed up and exported to another machine),
I opened the infradead list archive in Firefox, chose my post:
http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/get_iplayer/2016-April/008848.html
then clicked my e-mail header (as I am used to) to post a test
message inside the existing thread.
Default mail client was opened (MSOE 6.00.2900.3664),
"send" button was pressed!
Test e-mail has bounced back! That's it!

After your explanation, it appears that Outlook Express 6
does not carry over the "In-Reply-To:" header from Firefox,
(present in infradead archive), so mail is rejected by list!

With regards to
http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/get_iplayer/2016-April/008878.html
(which seems to have aggravated you - and someone else -
disproportionately) it was a final test I needed to conduct today,
to see whether my own (obsolete) copy of MSOE 6 could
successfully start a new thread in the list - it was a one-off
thing that I had no intention whatsoever to keep on doing...
So I find your reprimand ("Please stop doing this")
unnecessarily austere...
 Over the course of the years, I think I have a good record
of not starting OT threads or not polluting the list in any other way,
so if I need from time to time to perform a test,
it should not be such a major issue...

The outcome of my tests:

MSOE 6 on WinXP => clicking the mailto: link
of a posted message in the infradead archive
(opened in Firefox) does not seem to work -
starting a new thread does.

Windows Mail on Windows Vista=> clicking
the mailto: link of a posted message in the infradead
archive (opened in Firefox) works as expected.

In the end, yes, you are probably right -
Microsoft appears to be at fault here!

Many thanks to Richard Cole & C E Macfarlane
for taking the time to test/post.

BTW, d4x has replied back with more info
related to his inability to access the list -
details will be posted inside a separate mail...

Regards,
Vangelis. 