I can’t believe IT departments allow Lotus Notes on their networks

I’m having problems installing new software in my CrossOver Office Windows (non-)emulator, so I’m trying to get a VMWare Windows virtual machine working. A coworker gave me an image that’s working for him, and suggested that I just use that.

First thing I did was delete his personal account and create a new one for me. Then I copied over my .id file from ./.cxoffice/dotwine/fake_windows/data/notes/data/[foo].id to the appropriate place on the virtual machine. And when I fire up Notes, it says has my id in the drop down, and I can log in with my current password. But when I click the “Mail” item, it shows me my cow orker’s mail box. Just in case you missed that, let me spell it out for you – I used my password and accessed his email.

I mentioned that to our sysadmin guy (who takes care of the local Unix servers, and helps us work around the stupidity of corporate IT who are responsible for the Windows boxes). He said yes, you can put your Notes ID file on a thumb drive, take it to any Windows box in the company, log in with your password and read the email of the person who owns that box. Is it just me, or that just about the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard? Now, I don’t know if that’s a deficiency of Notes, or a deficiency of corporate IT, and I don’t particularly care. I’m just boggled.

But accepting that bogglement for the moment, does anybody know how to make Notes forget about the person who used to read Notes on this box and now doesn’t even have an account on the box, and allow me to read mine? The sysadmin says the only way is to remove Notes and reinstall it, but when I try that I get a Notes that doesn’t ask for any password and complains that the mail file wasn’t found when I start it.