Okay, this is from the Windows XP logon screen.
Leaving aside for a moment the fact that I have nearly 200 unread mails, I want to know three things:
After all that messy anti-trust business, surely Windows XP and Office 2003 shouldn’t be so closely coupled as to provide this information on the logon screen.
Who decided providing this on the logon screen would be a good idea? What other surprise supposedly private items might popup for all to see?
How the smeg do I turn this off, while still using the Welcome screen, and preferably leaving Fast User Switching on?
This KB article describes it in more detail. I’ll need to do a little more digging to figure out how to turn it off.
Update 12:45pm. This article describes a registry hack that effectively disables it, by removing the privilege that updates the message count.
7:30pm. Yes, that registry hack seems to work. (And thanks to Wilson, who spotted it before I spotted it).
It is not tied to Outlook (or Office 2003), all it takes is a “compatible” e-mail software (that is, one that will write the number of unread e-mail messages to a registry key). I have Thunderbird as my default client, and I get the unread e-mail count on the logon screen as well.
KB article #304148 shows a (sort of roundabout) way to turn it off.