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SpamEater™ Pro - anti email spam
 General Questions:
Q: Do I check my email with SpamEater Pro or my email program?
I'm using the 30-day trial. I'm confused-- am I now supposed to check my email through SpamEater Pro 4.0 instead
of my email client program (e.g. Outlook)?
A: No, you still pull your messages with your email client.
But, SpamEater Pro works between your email client and the mail server. We recommend that you setup
your account profiles in SpamEater Pro to have SpamEater check the messages (on the server) on a scheduled basis,
such as every 15 minutes or so. (The exact interval can be adjusted depending on your email volume or preferences.)
You should also turn off any automatic send/receive in Outlook. When you want read your email,
simply do a send/receive in Outlook. With the scheduled checks, SpamEater will be filtering the email on your
mailbox every XX minutes, or however you set it. You might also want to force a check with SpamEater Pro just
before doing a send/receive in Outlook to make sure any messages that hit your mailbox between the last scheduled
check by SpamEater and the time you want to do a send/receive were seen and processed by SpamEater Pro.
Q: Dose SpamEater Pro delete messages on the server?
I have SpamEater Pro check the messages on the server (with either the Check or Check and View) and it supposedly
deletes the spam messages. But, when I then pull the rest of the messages with my email client, all of the spam
that was to have been deleted is still there also!
A: This can particularily occur of your ISP has a proxy for the mail servers or series
of proxy servers. This is a known issue with netcom.com in particular and can also be true with other providers.
If you do a Send/Receive with your email client immediately after checking messages with SpamEater, this may
occur for these ISP. The easiest way to resolve this is to wait 30 seconds to 1 minute after completing the check
with SpamEater before pulling the messages with your email client program. That delay should allow the actual
deletion of the messages to occur on the server after SpamEater completes it's check and disconnects.
Q: How to start SpamEater Pro with Windows?
Could you tell me how to get SpamEater PRo 4 to start up together with windows XP? Because when I restart my
machine I have to manually start SpamEater Pro and I keep forgetting about it.
A: To set SpamEater Pro to start with windows, you simply need to do the following:
1) In SpamEater Pro 4's main window, select Tools | Preferences on the menu.
2) Under the Startup section, check the box labeled 'Run SpamEater Pro when Windows starts'.
3) Click OK.
Now SpamEater Pro will automatically run when you reboot your computer or log out and then back in to your system.
Q: When I try and run SpamEater Pro 4 after installation on my XP system, it crashes with numerous Windows error messages. Sometimes I can try running it multiple times and it'll finally start. Most of the time though it just crashes.
A: This is a known issue with SpamEater Pro releases prior to v4.0.2, particularily when running on a Pentium 4 computer with hyper-threading enabled. This is fixed in 4.0.2 and greater releases.
To update your current installation, providing you can get it to run, select Help | Check for Updates on the main SpamEater Pro window menu, answer Yes to download and install the available update and follow the prompts.
After downloading, run to install and be sure to install SpamEater Pro on top of your current installation. All settings, registeration license, etc will be maintained in the upgrade.
Q: SpamEater Pro and Anti-Virus software
Since SpamEater Pro deals with email, which is how most viruses these days are propogated, the database files will likely contain messages with viruses (not a threat) and as well, the Rules table in the database contains references to numerous viruses to filter them from your inbox.
This being the case, you can run into some database corruption problems in SpamEater Pro, created by your anti-virus software if it check those files and decides to try and delete or quarrentine the files.
A: We recommend, to prevent this and other potential problems, that you configure your anti-virus software to exclude the files in the SpamEater Pro 4 data directory. No scripts in messages are executable, nor are the attachments in archived messages, within SpamEater Pro, so any virus infected messages there are not a threat to your system and there's no benefit to having your anti-virus scan the SpamEater Pro database files, but rather there's a big risk of problems such as data corruption which can force you to reinstall SpamEater Pro from scratch and reconfigure.
Q: Why SpamEater Pro won't run after the first time?
I ran SpamEater Pro 4.0 after installing and it showed me the New User Wizard, which I proceeded through and completed and everything seemed to be working fine. I then tried to restart SpamEater Pro 4 and I get the splash screen and then nothing. Each time I try and restart it - the same thing. How can I start SpamEater Pro?
A: By default SpamEater Pro runs 'hidden' out of the way, minimized to your system tooltray (next to your clock). When starting SpamEater Pro, you will see the splash screen (unless you have turned it off in Preferences) and then it'll quietly minimize to your tooltray (not your taskbar). To display the main SpamEater Pro window, simply right-click the SpamEater Pro icon in your tooltray and select Show SpamEater Pro from the popup menu, or double-click the SpamEater Pro icon in your tooltray with your left mouse button.
You can change this behavior if desired in Preferences - select File | Preferences and set the desired option under Startup Options.
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Configuration:
Q: Why scheduled checks don't appear to be taking place?
I have my accounts setup in SpamEater Pro 4 to check messages every 5 minutes. But, these checks don't seem to be occuring as scheduled. How can this be fixed?
A:The most likely cause would be that scheduled checks are suspended. Right-click the SpamEater Pro tooltray icon and is the Suspend menu option checked? If so, click it to uncheck it and that will enable scheduled checks to execute.
You can also verify this in the main SpamEater Pro window by looking at the Suspend button on the toolbar. If that button has an outline around the button, then scheduled checks are suspended. Click the button to enable the scheduled checks and you'll note that the outline around the button then disappears.
Q: Is there any way to not archive rejected and eaten messages?
A: Yes, you can disable archiving on an account by account basis. SpamEater Pro 3.x Select File | Preferences from the SpamEater Pro menu. Then select an account from the list on the Accounts tab and click the Edit button. Uncheck the box in the middle of the editor window to disable archiving for that account.
Then click Save and OK to save your changes.
SpamEater Pro 4:
1) If using Default System Properties, click that option in the Tools menu. Otherwise, double-click your account icon in Profiles.
2) Click the Processing tab
3) Uncheck the checkbox at the bottom for Archive rejected (eaten) messages..
4) Click OK
Q: Where do I look to find my incoming and outgoing mail servers?
A: The easiest way it to look at your email client program (e.g. Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, etc) settings for your account. SpamEater Pro comes with instructions on how to locate the needed information in your email client software. To see these instructions, when you see the New User Wizard when starting SpamEater Pro, or by selecting to create a new account profile in the Profiles area in SpamEater Pro 4, click the button on the first page of the wizard with the label 'New Profile Information Packet'. That will open the worksheet in your web browser. I recommend that you print that page out as you'll need all the information asked for on that worksheet to successfully setup your account in SpamEater Pro.
Down towards the bottom of that page, 2nd section from that bottom, is a section titled 'Common Email Clients'. Locate your email client in that section and you'll find step by step instructions for locating the needed information in that email client program.
Also, in the section at the bottom of that worksheet page is a section titled 'Common Internet Service Providers'. There you'll find the usual incoming and outgoing mail server entries for a number of popular ISPs.
Q: How to set a delay for checks on SpamEater Pro 4 startup?
A: As of SpaEater Pro v4.0.1, you can set a delay (in seconds) for checks of accounts setup with the enabled option 'Check on Startup'. This can be important if you load SpamEater Pro when you log into Windows, but it takes a bit for your network connection to be established and initialized.
To change this setting from the default value of 0, run Regedit and locate the key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\High Mountain Software\SpamEater Pro 4.Under this key, you'll find a value named DelayOnStartup. (If you do not see it there, it likely means you are running a version older than 4.0.1 and will need to upgrade for this feature). Set the DelayOnStartup value to the number of seconds you want the startup checks delayed when SpamEater Pro is started. This can be any number between 0 and 180 (decimal).
 If you are not familiar with editing your Windows registry, then we do NOT recommend you do the above. Either contact us for other possible options, or have someone you know that is familiar with the registry to make this change for you.
As of SpamEater Pro 4.0.5, you can change this value in Tool | Preferences, rather than having to edit the Windows registry as noted above.
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Filters:
Q: Why is processing VERY slow after rules update?
After doing the online rules update, processing has slowed to a crawl! How can I get the processing speed to be more efficient?
A: Check the Blacklist filter rules and make sure that you only have one or two of them enabled. More will likely cause very slow processing, particularily for dial-up and slower DSL Internet connections.
Q: SPEWS Blacklist problems
When I have the blacklist on, a lot of e-mails end up as spam. When I turn it off a lot of spam gets thru. I think the SPEWS blacklist is causing the problem when the blacklist is on. Can I turn the blacklist on and not use the SPEWS list?
A: SPEWS is being removed from the distribution of SpamEater Pro blacklist. I'd recommend turning it off and even deleting it from your installation. While it did used to be a reputable blacklisting service, it has gone the other way of late and is poorly run and poorly maintained.
Instead, I'd recommend using the SpamCop, SpamHaus and DSBL blacklists in SpamEater. The NJABL is also a good one to use.
Q: I have enabled Blacklist checks in SpamEater Pro and now it's taking a LONG time to process messages. How can that be fixed?
A: While the Blacklist checks can be quite effective, it's important that they are setup correctly, otherwise they will either provide no benefit, or will, as you are seeing, cause checks to process slowly.
The first thing to check with your blacklist settings, is the Received: header line that is being checked. This is set on the Filters tab for your account profiles, or on Tools | Default System Properties | Filters for those profiles using the global default settings. Under the Filters list is an option that's labeled 'When checking Blacklist Servers use Received Line #'. Setting that to a value of 0 - which has all Received lines checked, can slow processing dramatically, and provide no real benefit. There's likely only one IP address that would need to be checked in a single Received line. So, you want to look at the raw heades for a typically message you receive on an account and look for the Received line that shows your ISP's mail server receiving the message from the remote sending server. Then, counting top down, 1 based, to that Received line will give you the number you want to enter in that option on the Filters tab.
Note that if you have multiple account profiles setup in SpamEater Pro and they are from different servers, you will quite possibly need to use different values for each account for this Received line setting.
Please also refer to the Contents topic under Filters in the Help file titled 'Finding Proper Blacklist Check Received Line Value' for more details and an example.
Q: How can I upgrade all of my custom 3.x rules into the new SpamEater Pro 4?
A: This requires at least version 4.0.0.81 of SpamEater Pro. The upgrade process for custom rules is part of the installation program. To do it after installation, make sure you close SpamEater Pro, and then simply run the setup program again (sepsetup4.exe), unselect all options as you go through it, until you get to the end where you'll see the Upgrade 3.x rules option. Check that checkbox and click Next to perform the upgrade.
After the upgrade completes, it's highly recommended that you review the imported rules in the Filter Rules section of SpamEater Pro 4.
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Installation:
Q: What is best way to install SpamEater Pro on new computer system and save my settings from the old installation on my old computer?
A: You should start by downloading the latest release. Then, do the following:
1) Install the new version on your new computer.
2) Install your registered license file, if you are a registered user.
3) With SpamEater Pro closed on BOTH computers (old and new), copy the files from the data directory under where you installed SpamEater on your old computer to the data directory under the installation on your new computer.
4) Run SpamEater Pro on your new computer, select Help | Check for Updates to be sure you have the latest system rules installed.
Then, all of your settings, account profiles, rules, sender lists, etc, should be just as they were on your old computer.
Q: Why blacklist checks do not seem to be working?
A: If your ISP adds more than one received header to messages, or you are using a mail proxy, then you may need to adjust the Received line that SpamEater uses for blacklist checks. This is set on the Filters tab in your account profile properties.
To check this, view the headers of a message and look for the Received line that shows your ISP's mail server receiving the message from the remote system. Count the Received: lines from top down to this one and that's the number you want to set at the bottom of the Blacklist's tab in SpamEater Pro Preferences.
Q: Reinstall non-beta release over beta release installation
I no longer have the lastest non-beta version of Spameater Pro, I want to loose this Beta version and go back to that. How I should do this?
A: You'll need to download the full installation and install it on top of your current installation. You can do this as follows:
1) Close SpamEater Pro using File | Exit SpamEater Pro.
2) Download the latest non-beta release.
3) Open the downloaded sepsetup4.exe file and when you are given the option of the installation location, make sure it's pointing at where you currently have the beta installed to.
4) Run SpamEater Pro and check Help | About SpamEater Pro and you should see the version information not indicating a Debug release and instead the latest non-beta version release number. |
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Tips and Tricks:
Q: How always receive messages from my address book?
A: Import your address book records to SpamEater Pro's Approved Senders list. Approved Senders are checked first by SpamEater Pro and when a match is found, the message is always accepted and processing continues with the next message. This is a quick and easy way to ensure that you will always receive messages from people that are in your address book.
Q: Is there some hot-keys to match the program?
A: Yes.
You can use the following hot-key combinations to quickly move from area to area in SpamEater Pro 4 without using your mouse:
CTRL-ALT-A Message Archives
CTRL-ALT-F Filters
CTRL-ALT-P Account Profiles
CTRL-ALT-R Recent Messages
Q:
How to reprocess messages?
A: SpamEater Pro will check a message only once. When SpamEater Pro processes messages on the mail server, any messages that are still there from the last check, are not reprocessed. If you create a new rule, or Approved Sender for a message that you want accepted, for example, and then run a check again, it will not be reprocessed and will fail for the same reasons as it originally did. If you want to reprocess a message, then you must right-click the message (multiple selections are supported) in Recent Messages and select Mark for Reprocessing from the popup menu.
Q: How to change rule actions?
A: While you cannot edit the system rules in SpamEater Pro, you can change the actions of all rules, including system rules. Many rules ship with SpamEater Pro set with an action of Flag. This is to be conservative in trying to work for the masses without creating a high false positive rate. It is quite likely that many of the system rules in SpamEater Pro with actions of Flag would better serve you being set to Eat. Look over your rules and if you see some Flag rules with high hits, but don't see legitimate messages getting flagged with these rules, then change them to Eat and you'll starting rejecting spam messages that were possibly only flagged previously. This will also speed processing since once SpamEater finds a message that hits on an Eat rule, processing stops for that message. For hits on Flag rules, processing continues until there's an Eat rule hit on for the message or the max threshold for flag rules is hit.
Q: Information of easy Message Header Rule creation tip
A:
There are two easy Message Header Rule creation tips as follows:
1) When viewing a message in the Message Details window (double-clicking a message in the list in Recent Messages or Message Archives), click onto the Message Header tab and then double-click the header field you want to create a rule for. The Message Header Rule editor will then be displayed with all the fields completed based on the selected message.
2) When viewing a message in the Message Details window (double-clicking a message in the list in Recent Messages or Message Archives), click onto the Formatted Message tab and then click the From, To, or Subject field label you want to create a rule for. The Message Header Rule editor will then be displayed with all the fields completed based on the selected message. When you move your mouse cursor over the words From, To, and Subject, you will see the 'hidden' button appear. This is also supported in the Preview pane in Recent Messages and Message Archives for the header display items From and Subject.
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