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Strange ~ icon on desktop solved

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Name: Vince
Date: June 9, 2003 at 15:23:00 Pacific
OS: XP
CPU/Ram: N/A
Comment:

I have seen a few posts around here about people getting a strange icon appearing on their desktop with a tilde sign ( ~ )

Mystery solved! It is the result of a windows update 330994 patch. You get the temp file after a change is made to your address book in Outlook express. You can see if you have the patch by going to IE....Help...About and seeing if the patch is listed there. I made a change to my address book this morning and "Bingo" the file appeared!
Here is the info I obtained! Phewwwwww! Glad that's over with!

One of the "fixes" from MS several months ago causes this glitch.
What that file is (which I believe you will see is named "~") is your yourname.wa~ file which on my PC resides in C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book .
That file is the backup for yourname.wab (the OE Address Book). But now, after the glitch, the .wa~ file is no longer getting updated when you make a change to Address Book. Rather it goes to your Desktop as "~" instead of to C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book as yourname.wa~.
However, your Address Book, itself, is still getting updated. So unless you worry about the backup no longer being updated(what good is it, anyway??), you can delete the "~" file. Or if you cannot live without the updated backup .wa~ file, then just rename that suspicious "~" file to yourname.wa~ and send it to the C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book folder (replacing the existing and now outdated yourname.wa~ file).
Supposedly MS was working on a fix many months ago, but I have seen no announcement of one yet, and none of the recent MS fixes have cured the problem.
That "~" (tilde) file is most probably appearing as the result of installing the "April 2003, Cumulative Patch for Outlook Express (330994)". Microsoft is aware of the problem and is supposedly working on a fix. Many people are experiencing this problem and from what I've read about this problem that icon will also reappear when you reply to an e-mail and you have your Outlook Express set up to enter the persons e-mail address to your address book whenever you reply to an e-mail. You can either just put up with it or follow the uninstall directions for the patch at the link below.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/critical/330994/default.asp

Hope this answers the question for some people.


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Response Number 1
Name: tomtt
Date: June 9, 2003 at 18:24:46 Pacific
Reply:

Vince: Thank You very much for letting people know that! It really came in handy.


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Response Number 2
Name: jschear
Date: June 13, 2003 at 01:07:56 Pacific
Reply:

If I do what you say in your article and rename the file and send it to a folder will the ~ icon still pop up each time the Address book is changed. Do you you think that it is best to just deleite it each time it pops up?


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Response Number 3
Name: mesich
Date: June 27, 2003 at 05:01:52 Pacific
Reply:

Vince,

Very good information, I knew someone that apparently had been fighting this for weeks and was going crazy trying to figure it out.

Sent him a link to the thread and all is well.

Thanks again for the info.

Best Regards,
Mesich


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Response Number 4
Name: Ewald
Date: June 27, 2003 at 05:47:35 Pacific
Reply:

Many thanks, folks!

But this problem is already solved ("~")!

In the beginning, I thought I have only ONE problem or it is caused by the same. But now I know, i have more problems: there is still the problem while updating the addressbook in OE. When I click OK after adding or changing an entry the programm (Addressbook) hangs or loops. I don't know what, but it seems to be caused in conjunction with McAfee's Antivirus software.

I hope anyone knows something or I can find out something about this , then I'll post it.

I cann't believe that I would be the only with this problem: on my friend's computer it's the same problem unless there runs Win98, but also with McAfee.
What I see as commons:
- OutlookExpress (different versions: 5.5 and 6.0 SP.1)
- McAfee's InternetSecurity (w. VScan 7.0)
- No MS Office (Sun's OpenOffice)
- Win98 and WinME (which is almost the same as Win98).
- German Language

until later.
Ewald.


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