Mailfilter README.Windows


0. GENERAL INFORMATION 

Mailfilter is a flexible utility for UNIX (-like) operating systems to get rid
of unwanted spam mails, before having to go through the trouble of downloading
them into the local computer. It offers support for one or many POP3 accounts
and is especially useful for dialup connections via modem, ISDN, etc. 

Mailfilter connects to any POP3 mail box and compares part of its content to a
set of user defined filter rules. That way the spam gets deleted directly on
the mail server. 

With Mailfilter you can define your own filters (rules) to determine which
e-mails should be delivered and which are considered waste. Rules are regular
expressions, so you can make use of familiar options from other mail delivery
programs such as e.g. procmail. 

Mailfilter is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License. For
more information, see the COPYING file provided with the Mailfilter program.

The latest version of Mailfilter can be obtained from this web page:

       http://mailfilter.sourceforge.net/


2. HOW TO COMPILE MAILFILTER ON WINDOWS 9X/2000/NT

Mailfilter was originally designed to run on UNIX (-like) operating systems.
With some additional libraries installed such as for example, the Cygwin
environment, DJGPP or MinGW, it is possible to compile and run Mailfilter on
the Windows 9x/2000/NT platforms as well. All three products can be obtained
from:

       http://www.cygwin.com/

       http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/

       http://www.mingw.org/

After you have installed DJGPP or MinGW for example, you should have all the
necessary tools and libraries on your hard disk to translate the Mailfilter
source code.


3. FURTHER READING

This document is intended to give merely a brief overview of what is necessary
to make Mailfilter run on the Windows 9x/NT/2000 platforms. For more detailed
instructions you should also have a look at the official Mailfilter homepage.
At the moment, Bob Paddock provides the `official' Mailfilter installation
guidelines for MS-Windows and also offers the the binaries for download. Find
it all on his web page:

       http://www.csonline.net/bpaddock/mailfilter/default.htm


4. BUGS

Even though we have tested Mailfilter thoroughly and particularly with Cygwin
and DJGPP, we have noticed that sometimes Cygwin acts up trying to pre-compile
filter rules (Regular Expressions). If you encounter such an error as well,
please let us know, so we can try to resolve this issue. Thank you.

There are no such bugs known when using DJGPP to compile Mailfilter. In case of
trouble, you might as well use that environment. (Yet someone has to try
Mailfilter on MinGW though.)