GetMail For Hotmail As A Service

Many thanks to Snork for his e-mail detailing the instructions below on how to run GetMail for Hotmail as a service, excellent work!

I was looking for a way to get around the fact that Hotmail is so painful to use when I came across your little application. When I was testing it out I was directed to your website the first time I had an email to forward. I noticed an entry in your news saying that you wanted to find a way to make it possible to run GetMail as a service. I have had success using Microsoft’s Resource Kit tools and thought I might share this with you in case you wanted to use it. You can find the reskit tools at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displaylang=en

It is 11M so if you would rather save space I’m sure you can do some web searching and find just the two files you actually need: SRVANY.EXE and INSTSRV.EXE. I would suggest the whole package if you can though because it is packed full of good tools. Once you have these you need to:

1. Install GetMail
2. Install the Resource Kit Tools (or find the two files listed above)
3. Copy SRVANY.EXE to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32
4. Run the following command from a DOS window (command prompt)
5. INSTSRV “GetMail Service” “C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SRVANY.EXE”
6. Open a registry editor and browse to the key:
7. HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\GetMail Service
8. Create a new key (folder) named “Parameters”
9. In that key create a string value named “Application” and in that value put “C:\Program Files\PaulB\GetHotmail\GetMail\GetMail.exe”
10. Create another value named “AppDirectory” and in that value put “C:\Program Files\PaulB\GetHotmail\GetMail”
11. Open Control Panel -> Administrative Tols -> Services 10 – Find “GetMail Service” and open it’s properties
12. On the “Log On” tab set “Allow Service To Interact With Desktop”
13. Start the service (icon should appear in systray beside clock)
14. Right click the GetMail icon and configure your accounts
15. Send yourself an email and see if it works

Notes:

1. The instructions above assume you have used the default install directories for both Windows and GetMail. If you did not use the default paths of course you would have to modify the above to use your path settings.
2. If you want to just have mail forwarded without seeing the icon you can disable the “Interact With Desktop” setting in the service’s properties.
3. If you want to configure the program or your accounts you should do it by enabling the “Interact With Desktop” setting and use the systray icon (rather than manually running the application or double clicking the .EXE).
4. If you have any problems with the service failing on system startup you may need to do some web searches on how to setup dependencies so that it won’t start until AFTER the Workstation service starts.

Notes from e-eeasy.com:

1. I’d recommend this only for advanced users
2. You will have to log in as a user in order for this to work