Thank you, Gentlemen!
I received a response from Mozilla Support to my Thunderbird question. For reasons I cannot fathom, the email announcing the response has disappeared as has the post and response on the Mozilla Forum web page (though I did click the button saying the issue had been resolved) or I would quote the response verbatim. Absent that, you must trust to my memory which is not as good short-term as it once was.
First, 'Donald' said that there is no 32-bit version; it has been discontinued and that only 64-bit is on offer. That conforms with my failed search to find a 32-bit version to download.
Second, I was told how to access PW in TB and it is just as Rebel reports. I accessed it by clicking the hamburger button at upper right then choosing Settings and then clicking the Saved Passwords button where I could then choose to display the passwords (which must be confirmed).
Third, 'Donald' said that he knew of no limit on the number of accounts that TB can accommodate. I continue to have problems adding accounts. This is, no doubt, an operator head space issue.
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On to plowing new ground:
I am still vexed by email passwords. I went through the process of capturing the PWs that TB displayed onto a notepad (before deleting them). This involved typing - cut and paste is not available to this function in TB - the PWs, printing out the sheet, then confirming what I had typed verbally by reading them back from TB to my wife. Surprisingly, this has not yet ended our 62 year marriage, but it's a close call I think.
Having captured all the PWs that TB would display for me, I deleted them all from TB because I had read that doing so would simply cause TB to prompt me to enter them again whenever TB processed messages to and from each account. I must sorrowfully report that this has only increased the vexation. Yes the prompts work, but providing PWs I previously and carefully captured doesn't get past the requests to provide the PWs. Adding to the overall confusion, TB asks for each account's PW in turn and none so far has worked. TB continues to test PWs for accounts periodicallly (5-10 minutes) and returns messages when those tests fail forcing me to have to cancel the messages.
Continuing to overthink the problem, I reasoned that my ISP must have records of the email PWs for accounts under its domain name. Thinking that the corruption might have been and might continue to be at the ISP, I endeavored to capture what their files showed by my email accounts which turned out to be impossible as their web pages do not support this. My aim was to set them on my ISP to new, known values then use those values when prompted by TP for new PWs. This might have worked were it not for the very poor user interface provided by my ISP.
My ISP does not allow my to see what PWs are on file. Even providing all login security and security challenges for identification will not let me find those nuggets. Instead, their protocol requires that I must confess that I have forgotten the PWs (not at all the case since I was careful to preserve their values). This then forces me to go through the routine of resetting all PWs at my ISP. Guess what? This can't be done through direct editing because, remember, they won't let me see the PWs despite my having jumped through all the hoops and challenges.
To further complicate matters, I (try) to use Roboform to store and manage PWs. I say 'try' because Roboform sees any PW change as being the PW for the ISP account, not for each individual email account. Don't ask how many hours I spent before it dawned on my what was happening. Roboform is another rabbit hole I explored but let us just say that they use 2-part ID with email to confirm I'm who I say I am. With email totally glommed up, I can't get the email that I need to respond to to confirm I'm me. So, I have to resolve the email PWs issue before I can tackle the Roboform email PW issue.
And, to add yet another complication, I have ISP email accounts each requiring PW validation and gmail email accounts each requiring PW validation.
My plan of action for the moment is to ignore the gmail PW issues for now and concentrate on my ISP email PWs. I will have to allege that I've forgot my PWs in order to set up new ones. I will use Roboform to generate the PWs but I will store them in a file of me own. Once I complete this for more than half a dozen accounts, I will turn my attention to TB to see if I can get it to accept and validate those PWs with my ISP.
If all that works, I shall turn my attention to gmail account PWs and sync'ing them with TB.
If you've read this far, I commend your patience. If nothing else, perhaps you found it entertaining in a schadenfreude kind of way.
