using old mail folders and address book in new system

[Drawoh Tesremos]

I've just replaced my old trusted XP machine with a Vista machine.

For mail, I was using Outlook Express, and on Vista I have Windows Mail.

What I'm looking for is a method of getting my old mail folders and address book onto the new system. My old XP machine is no longer working, but the disk is intact, so I can get at all the files. I've done similarly in the past when moving from an older system to XP, but on this occasion, can't find where the Windows Mail system keeps its mail folders or address book.

Does anyone have any suggestions (other than "use something better than Windows Mail" )?

 

[Drawoh Tesremos]

I think I've managed to answer my own question. I'd forgotten to uncheck "do not show hidden files and folders". Once that was unchecked, all was revealed.

 

[ron3003]

I always used the method outlined here
http://www.freebits.co.uk/backoutlook.html
Your problem is going to be finding out where the store folder is located now the old system is no longer up and running.

 

[Drawoh Tesremos]

Thanks Ron. I managed to find the old folders in the past, so I'm reasonably confident that I'll manage it this time.

Thanks for the link, though. Looks very useful.

 

[Drawoh Tesremos]

This is proving just a little more difficult than when I did similarly once before.

It seems that Outlook Express has a single .dbx file for each of its mail folders, whereas Windows Mail has a file for each mail item, and these are kept in windows folders, one folder corresponding to each mail folder. Importing using Windows Mail only seems to work with stuff that has been exported from Outlook Express; it won't simply pick up the raw .dbx files.

Since I no longer have access to my old system, which ran Outlook Express, but I do have the .dbx files, my plan is now to take my files to a friend's computer (one who is running Outlook Express), copy my .dbx files, suitably renamed should there be a clash, onto his system so Outlook Express can see them. (I've done this before on my own system, so know it works, even though it's not quite as straightforward as it sounds.) Then use Outlook Express to export those folders, and bring the results back home to import them to my Windows Mail.

I plan to do similarly with my address book, which I believe is also held as a .dbx file by Outlook Express (though I'd need to check).

Does anyone have any better suggestions?

Because I'll be away for the next week, I won't be trying any of this until 3rd October at the earliest. So any suggestions before then will be most welcome.

 

[Broken Hope]

The default Windows Mail on Vista was just a renamed outlook express, it should just allow you to import the store folder through the import settings. Are you sure you don't actually have Windows live mail on there? That one stored e mails as separate .eml files as far as I know.