According to the FAQ, "Private messages are only enabled for members in the Senior Member and Contributing Member usergroups."

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ivate_messages

oh maybe I never started using PM until I made status... thanks, mental note of that one.

I switched on messaging..

Perhaps you tried to, but you need to have made 150 posts ("Senior Member" status) before you can do that. When you click on my name, or "BW-userx"'s name, do you see "Send a private message to ..." as one of the options?

Looks like you did enable email. That is not the same thing.

Thanks to all who volunteered to help.. THIS IS THE FINAL ANSWER

Please note the attached file comes from an unknown person..

The saga went on as follows: I got help to fix the overlapping partition problem but lost my installation of Windows XP SP3 (no problem because I could just re-install it). Cleaned up the partitions for a Windows XP on sda1 and intended to put Linux Mint on sda2.

The real problem was Microsoft no longer supporting XP and my need to activate it. After a great deal of mucking around (even buying a $20 computer with XP on an 80G drive which reverted to asking to re-activate when I moved the HDD to my faster PC and stayed that way when I moved it back).. Oh bugger..

Then I found what is on the attachment.. If anyone has an activation problem with Windows XP this is the answer..

Attached Files

Reset30days.txt (1,019 Bytes, 18 views)