Fuck you you fucking fuck
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I started looking for a simple Windows IMAP client (no way I would let anyone use Outlook Express of my own free will). Why aren't there any free ones? I found exactly one semi-decent free Windows IMAP mail reader: Pegasus Mail.
Pegasus is OK for a 10 year old freeware product. It's IMAP support sucks, though. First of all, every time you click away and then back to the IMAP folder, it downloads alllllll the messages again. Every time. Second, it doesn't support IMAP over SSL. Which is what the U of M uses. So that's out.
Then I found out that Eudora has a "lite" mode without ads. Fine. I installed it, but this one can't even connect to the U of M's server. It keeps setting the mail server back to "localhost" and the login name to "login/original mail server". WTF? I tried this a few dozen times, reseting it, asking Jenny to type in her password again, reinstalling Eudora, setting up the account again, asking Jenny to type in her password, switching to POP mail, asking Jenny to type in her password...and on and on. I read the help documentation. I read the U of M's documentation. I searched the internet for "Eudora localhost" and found some fascinating resources on setting up an SSH tunnel with Eudora...but nothing related to my problem.
Finally, I searched the Eudora knowledgebase for "localhost". I found this page: Norton Antivirus 2000 is changing my settings: "After an error message when checking or sending mail, I notice that my settings have changed and my login name is now my login name with my mail server appended to it and my incoming and outgoing mail servers are both set to 127.0.0.1."
That's exactly what's happening, except the outgoing mail servers aren't affected, and the incoming mail server is set to "localhost", not "127.0.0.1". Oh, and one other thing. I don't have Norton Antivirus installed on my computer. However, I do have "PC-cillin 2000", some Taiwanese anti-virus knockoff. It came with my computer and I never paid much attention to it.
Navigating through the terribly worded and confusing antivirus software screens, I attempt to turn off everything possibly related to email or real-time scanning, then reconfigure Eudora and ask Jenny to type in her password (again). Lo and behold, it worked.
Fuck.
So...a big 'fuck you' to the University of Minnesota for their webmail program that constantly loses her messages; to Windows for sucking; to Pegasus mail for not supporting IMAP SSL; and to my god damn virus checker.