 | Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years. Thanks, CNET Support |
My Outlook Express e-mail files are on a hard drive I rescued from an XP machine when the motherboard burned out.
I now use the drive as an external drive on a Vista machine that is running Windows Mail.
How do I find my Outlook Express e-mail files on the external drive and how do I transfer them to Windows Mail?
I do not have a computer running Outlook Express that I can use.
Please help.
Discussion is locked
mperk720: Here is a quick rundown on transferring your e-mail.
Step 1) Locate Outlook Express mail
a) Enable viewing of hidden files in Vista: Start => Control Panel => Appearance and Personalization => click Show hidden files and folders under Folder Options category => select the Show hidden files and folders option and click OK to close Folder Options => close Control Panel
b) On your external drive, navigate to Documents and Settings\your user name\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{your Windows user identity number}\Microsoft\Outlook Express
Note: Your Windows UIN will look like a nonsensical strings of letters and numbers. If you have more than one string, take a look inside the Outlook Express folder for each to find your mail folders.
c) Make a note of the path (from step b) that contains the mail that you want to transfer because it will be needed when importing
Step 2) Import Outlook Express folder to Vista
a) Open Windows Mail
b) Click File => Import => Messages
c) Choose Microsoft Outlook Express 6 and click Next
d) Make sure Import mail from an OE6 store directory is selected and click OK
e) Click Browse and navigate to the Outlook Express folder that you noted in step 1c above (Don't go further than the OE folder)
f) Click Select Folder and then Next
g) Choose All Folders or Selected Folders (you'll have to select them individually using Selected) and click Next
h) Click Finish
This wasn't as quick as I thought but if you have any questions, let me know.
Thanks for the note.
I found my Outlook Express files in your Step 1 instructions.
When I try to navigate there in Step 2, I cannot get past the UNI folder. I get a message that there are no files in the folder.
What am I doing wrong?
mperk720: I don't think you did anything wrong. I skipped a step from the instructions because I didn't remember doing it when I transferred my mail from my XP system to my Vista system. So we'll go back to it now and see if it works.
Go back to the Outlook Express folder on your external drive and copy that folder over to your hard drive (the one that Vista is on). The recommendation is to copy it to the Documents folder but you can copy it to any folder that is easy to find. Once you've copied it over, go back through step 2 but navigate to the Outlook Express folder on your main drive, not the external drive. There may be something that requires the folder to be on the main drive before it will let you import it. Try that and let me know how it goes.
Thank you so much for your help.
I did what you said and it worked perfectly.
Many thanks for the save and assist.
Mark
You're welcome, mperk720. 
I'm glad that worked for you. I guess I should have known better than to leave a step out...lol.
Should I do the same thing to find my old Outlook Express address book and import it into Windows Mail Contacts?
Thanks again for all of your help.
Mark
mperk720: It's basically the same method as importing the messages. I'm going to skip typing the steps out this time and tell you where to find them in Vista.
Click Start => Help and Support => in the search box type "import contacts" and press Enter => choose "import, export, or change the format for contacts" => click on "to import contacts created in another program" => read through the steps before opening the Windows Contacts which is the first thing it suggests (pay close attention to the Notes section because it will tell you where to find the Contacts in Outlook Express)
You'll be using the option for Windows Address Book File inside Windows Mail when you import. This time it doesn't mention that you have to copy any folders to the Vista machine. Let me know if this helps.
when I tried following the steps described above, I got the following message: "no messages found in the folder or another application is running that has the required files open."
The only other location of the files is on my external hard drive in my backup folder.
Am I missing something? Has anyone else encountered this error message?
Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic