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.bin with OTFE decrypter
 
Hi,

I have "THE OTFE/.bin problem"

(a lot of topics on this site are about this : I've lost messages because of the encryption / The .bin file are not empty but I can't do anything with...)

So... Can RITLabs do something for us ? Like a .bin-decrypter in smartbat ?

Or... Do this application already exist ?

 
if you have a backup of message bases, restore it. I don't think something else can be done.

In general, to avoid problems use theBat for its' core purpose only - that's dealing with emails, where it's really good.
For anything else, use proven dedicated tools.

Encryption - keep you non-encrypted messages in an encrypted container or volume. Instead of using the highly problematic OTFE, just keep your mail folder inside a TrueCrypt(freeware), PGPdisk etc. virtual disk or encrypted partition.
Backup - just rar or zip the entire mail folder or desired portions of it, don't use the built-in backup tool
Scheduling - use Windows task scheduler to run theBat in command line mode, instead of using theBat's 'scheduler'

Etc...
 
I can't totally agree with you on these points.

I've been using OTFE since the early v3 versions and never had any problems with it. I've had one corrupted folder and that was artificially induced by cutting the power to the PC while TB was compressing a 1000+ messages folder (a spam collection)
So I only can conclude that if you purge and compress on a regular base TB is rather error resistant.
And that need for regular purging and compressing also exists when you aren't using OTFE.

T'B's internal backup has some advantages over other methods. Ever tried to compress your sorting office or address book? TB doesn't offer those options so deleting a filter or address book entry doesn't make the matching file any smaller. However a backup and restore does.

TB's internal scheduler comes in quite handy when you're scheduling messages, that's easier to do with the scheduler than with Windows' scheduler. Ever tried to schedule the execution of a filter or folder maintenance? Can't do that from outside of TB, but its internal scheduler manages just fine.
Of course I wouldn't recommend using TB's scheduler for running non TB related events like external programs.
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I'm just a user of The Bat! I don't work for Ritlabs.
 
I used OTFE in the past, but the problem described here happened to me twice, with no apparent reason - no power failures, hdd corruption etc. Since then I use non-encrypted message bases and keep them in a TrueCrypt container. Among other things, searches are faster that way.
With their huge user base, I guess TrueCrypt and PGPdisk are more reliable encryption tools than theBat(not in terms of security, just less problematic)

Imo it's obvious that simple archiving of the mail folder or parts of it is far better in any way, simpler, problem-free and easier to use(and restore) backup method. What you mention about AB compression is maybe the only point where the built-in backup tool has some advantage, but I guess the same can be done by simply copying all the entries to a new AB and deleting the old one.  

As for the scheduler, it's simply not a true scheduler as the program has to stay opened all the time for the tasks to run. There are tasks that can't be scheduled with Windows scheduler, but these are more or less exotic - I can't imagine why one may need to schedule filter execution or folder maintanence.
(btw maintanence is possible via command line so can be done with Windows scheduler)  
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