After Windows XP boots up to the Welcome Screen or the Logon Screen for a user to log on to the Windows desktop, there may be a message on the Logon Welcome page that the user has certain number of unread mail messages, together with the email address of the account. For example, “1 unread mail message”. The unread email messages count also appears when system is locked, and user is required to enter the password to enter the desktop again.
The count of number of unread messages is generated for each users individually. This message will be shown only after the user starts to use email clients that Windows recognizes, such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook, Windows Live Mail etc. The count takes into account all the unread messages from the default email client program.
You can disable this unread emails message, using the following method :
- Open Registry Editor by opening Start Menu → Run, typing regedit and pressing Enter.
- Navigate to the following key :
HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion UnreadMail
- In the right pane, you would find a value MessageExpiryDays. If you do not find it, you can create a DWORD value named MessageExpiryDays. Double-click on it and change the value to 0.
You can also download the registry entries file disable_unread_mail_xp.zip. Extract the contents of this file to a folder and double-click on disable_unread_mails.reg to disable the unread mail notification at the Welcome screen.