Outlook on 2 computers

[falsedawn2]

A friend recently purchased a new laptop. Already has a desktop with
Outlook running successfully to access Comcast POP3/SMTP mail servers.
Outlook on the laptop fails to access the same email account, each
time giving an error message that the mail account is receiving an
email and ERR - *box is locked. The asterisk represents a letter I
can't remember. Dell tech support claims you cannot use Outlook on 2
different machines to access the same account and that you have to use
Outlook Express on one. From what I've read online, this is not true,
that she can use Outlook on both machines.

Any ideas?

 

[Brian Tillman]

A friend recently purchased a new laptop. Already has a desktop with
Outlook running successfully to access Comcast POP3/SMTP mail servers.
Outlook on the laptop fails to access the same email account, each
time giving an error message that the mail account is receiving an
email and ERR - *box is locked. The asterisk represents a letter I
can't remember. Dell tech support claims you cannot use Outlook on 2
different machines to access the same account and that you have to use
Outlook Express on one. From what I've read online, this is not true,
that she can use Outlook on both machines.

Dell's India-based support person is blowing smoke, in that you certainly
can access the same mail account from more than one PC with whatever mail
client you wish, including Outlook. However, it's possible that the desktop
PC has the Comcast mailbox locked. Stop Outlook on the desktop and try
again on the laptop. What happens?

 

[Norman]

I'm on Comcast and I think you nailed it Brian. More than one machine set to
get mail from same account and I notice something similar. Comcast seems to
have something that allows only one access at a time. I've also noticed it
on one machine where if outlook is running, I might not be able to access
the mail via IE, HTML style. Part of how I avoid the problem is to log out
on the html mail after accessing it.
For the questioner, make sure you set both computers to leave copies on the
server if your intent is to have all messages on both machines. Then every
so often, according to how fast your Comcast mailbox starts to fill, and
after you're sure you got mail up to a recent point, log into your mail
account via IE. Sort by date and then delete all except the most recent
which may not have been downloaded to both machines.
Norman