MichaelEvangelista

I use Windows Mail to manage several email accounts and dozens of news
accounts. Since moving to Vista early last year, everything has seemed
fine... until now.

Starting a few days ago, Windows Mail will show new messages in a
newsgroup (the account name is bold in the folders pane and has a blue
number in parenthesis showing the number of new messages) BUT when I
click the account name, the new messages do not download.

What's odd... the little preview count at bottom left will show "xx
messages, 0 unread', while the folders pane shows there are some
unread, but won't display them!
I did find a way to at least get the messages - if I right click the
account name and select "catch up", the new messages will appear - but
unless they are the newest by date, I can't tell which thread they
were in, which renders it useless to try and find them.

Can anyone offer some help?

As a side note, I noticed at the same time this started, my mail
accounts' inbox is now grouping messages by title, with the little '+'
box to expand ... I am 100% sure it never used to work this way... and
I can't find a setting to turn that off.

Is my WinMail hosed?
Did I get some kind of 'auto update' that broke it, perhaps?

I would seriously consider another email app if I can import my
messages in all of their prospective folders and, just as importantly,
all of my many message rules - any suggestions? ( will anything import
Win Mail rules?)

thanks for the much needed help!