PMAIL.USR is required when you use Pegasus Mail in multiuser mode (or network mode which is the same but the mail directory structure is then located on a share on the network). PMAIL.USR does not exist when you run Pegasus Mail in standalone mode, as there is only *one* user.

PMAIL.USR records the names of the users (not identities) who have a mail directory on the system. PMAIL.USR is a text file whom structure is :

U (or A);username;fullname :

• U for a 'normal' user, A for an admin (the guys who can add users if the FS allows them to write in this directory)
• username: what you type to be identified by Pegasus Mail
• full name: what you see when you click on Adresses/Local users

PMAIL.USR has nothing to do with  the rights to read/modify the mail structure, these rights are given by the fs. A mail directory structure can be as follow (3 users):

Mail\pmail.usr

      \admin

      \user1

      \user2

Where pmail.usr is :

A;admin;mail administrator

U;user1; full name of user1

U;user2; full name of user2

Admin has the right 'modify' on the structure

user1 has the rights 'read' on pmail.user and 'modify' on the content of  Mail\user1

user2 has the rights 'read' on pmail.user and 'modify' on the content of  Mail\user2

if you want user1 to be able to send mails to user2 using the mail transport included in Pegasus Mail you have to give him the right 'add files' on  Mail\user2, a better solution is to create a group including the mail users and to give the right 'add file' on each user mail directory and the right 'read' on PMAIL.USR to that group

HTH

After upgrading to Pegasus Mail 3.5.1, I'm not able to start PM for any of the existing users. At start-up the following message comes up: "The user you are attempting to 'become' (Jan) does not exist on this system.". The mail folders for all users are in tact. I have followed advice from another posting on the Forum on this subject and checked the PMAIL.CFG file in the Programs folder, which is okay. The PMAIL.INI files in the user mailboxes are correct too. However, there was no PMAIL.USR file in the main MAIL folder. As I have an identical setup on my laptop, I copied the file from there and checked its configuration for the desktop PC. All appears correct, but  PM still does not recognize the users.

What else could be wrong?

You could try, at your own risk (and make sure you back up all essential files), the following steps, which I copied from www.pmail.com/faqs (and edited them as

appropriate), where they are presented as a way of changing your pmail

installation from single-user to multi-user mode, but I thought they

could be helpful in this case:

• Make sure that Pegasus Mail is not running. In the directory where Pegasus Mail is

  installed, locate the file PMAIL.CFG. Delete this file or, probably safer, move it to a temporary folder (ed., Steffan).
  

• Run Pegasus Mail again. It will behave as if being started for the first time. Choose

  Multi-user mode, tell Pegasus Mail where to place your mailbox directories, then create a

  user for yourself and login as that user. 

Maybe someone from the beta team could confirm whether this is a safe first step towards getting Pmail back to work.

Cheers!
Steffan

Thanks Steffan, this worked perfectly. [Y]  All my accounts are back in use.

Cheers,  Jan

Cool, glad it worked!

I see this problem, too.

In 4.41, I used pconfig.exe to point to \\SERVER\PMAIL\~n for both HOME and NEW mailboxes. There is no PMAIL.USR in \\SERVER\PMAIL, and from our point of view PMAIL.USR is neither necessary nor desired, as mailbox rights are granted by file system permissions, and we use IMAP/SMTP only, and there is no reason that Pegasus has an idea of local users.

In  4.51, PMAIL.USR seems to be always required. This is unfortunate, as we would have to maintain it, and therefore we will not use 4.51.

Perer Rindfuss