User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009021910 Firefox/3.0.7 Build Identifier: version 2.0.0.21 (20090302) Thunderbird plus Windows resulted in lost email messages ! On a Windows XP system the user login Profile was somehow mangled. When the user next logged in, WinXP permitted them to login, but created a temporary user profile using the directory "\TEMP" Thunderbird was used to download email. The account settings were set to delete email from the server. The user logged off WinXP. WinXP then deleted the \TEMP profile and its files. All the downloaded email was gone. Bye bye. The user was upset. ----------------- WinXP did post a warning message that \TEMP was temporary and files would be deleted. But the user didn't understand the implications. The user did not know Thunderbird stored email messages under the Profile directories. ------------------ Suggestions Thunderbird should test it's profile directory name. If it is "\TEMP" and the account settings are set to delete from the server, then give the user another warning screen .... 1) You are logged into a Temporary Profile under Windows. 2) Your account is set to delete email messages from the server. Together, this means that after you log off Windows, whatever email messages you download will be automatically deleted ! The above is a minimum. The safe course, and my preference, is for Thunderbird (when running in \TEMP profile, with account settings of delete from server) is to NOT download any email messages. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Windows User Profile is mangled / unusable 2. User logs in, Windows creates Temporary profile 3. Account settings are set to delete email from server after download 4. Thunderbird downloads email messages from server 5. User logs off Windows Actual Results: Users email messages are all deleted by Windows Expected Results: Email messages should be kept. see microsoft.com temporary user profile

How about complaining at microsoft about the unclear warning ?

This is an incredibly bad design decision on Microsoft's part. It does not just affect Thunderbird though, I see complaints about this across a wide spectrum of applications. Thunderbird supports storing the profiles wherever you want. If in your environment, you cannot rely on the OS to maintain reliable storage of user data, you are free to setup profiles for your users that are stored in a different location.

rkent> This is an incredibly bad design decision on Microsoft's part. Agreed!! But Thunderbird is the last link in the chain, and it was Thunderbird that got blamed. #1 rule in medicine .... Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm. Thunderbird operating in Windows should know the in's & out's of Windows, and do no harm. It's an easy test, profile name == "TEMP" and account setting, Delete from Server. rkent> Thunderbird supports storing the profiles wherever you want. users who ignore messages about your files are temporary and will be deleted are not the type to set user profile directories.

Well, how about we just default to leave on server?