Finding OE email folders in recycle bin?

[Ripley]

I hope this info is helpful for someone finding a change in Outlook Express that took place after applying the December MS Security Updates.
After running CCleaner and reviewing the "Analyze" I noticed all my email folders in my recycle bin with bak extensions.  I had searched and found somewhat of an explanation below.

UPDATE: On 12/12/2006, Microsoft released a cumulative security patch for Outlook Express (923694). For some details see  Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-076.

This update does the following:
a. If a user compacts the folders manually using File | Folder | Compact all, then the Compact Check Count in the registry is now reset to zero.

b. When OE does the "Compact All" now (whether initiated by the user or due to the 100 closings prompt), OE makes a copy of the OE message store and places it into the recycle bin. The OE folders are given the file extension of "bak". If the compaction fails and results in corruption of the message store, then the user should be able to rename the "bak" back to "dbx" and copy it back into the OE message store location to restore the backed up file and the lost messages.

More information can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918069 . See the "Note" under "Resolution" for the pertinent issues.

http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx

I couldn't figure out whether the description above meant some of my OE folders (dbx files) were corrupt, and found numerous other MS KB docs to read, but couldn't quite sort out my questions, especially looking at the dates of these MS docs.

Finally, I found a discussion which explains some background for this MS OE Update, that there was an optional one back in April 2006, and this latest OE Security patch, replaces that one in April.  This thread was also helpful for explaining bak extensions, how to restore your email from them should you need to, and ideas for when to clean these bak files out of your recycle bin.  There is also another link provided here which explains more on identifying corrupt OE email folders, and how to deal with that issue.

Thread link from Aumha Forums/clarification in post #5 from Robear Dyer MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security & Shell/User) since 2002
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=23279&start=0

While I was searching that forum I found another thread/similiar topic, with this response from the same MVP

* There are a LOT of OE KB articles that need to be updated, now that 923694 has been released. (I've got a lotta canned responses that need updating now, too!)

http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=23231