Recovering Outlook Express file folders

The Computer Room ^ | Oct 14, 2003 | Young Werther

[Young Werther]

My motherboard gave up the ghost. I purchased a Compaq E-machine, (due to cash flow issues from being underemployed!)

The hard drive on the old Compaq was okay so the Comp USA tech installed it in the new machine and made it non-bootable. I know that's a "cheap" way to back up a system but the crash was unexpected!

I'm trying to bring the system back to where it was before trying anything new. I was able to import the contact list into Outlook Express from my Yahoo e-mail account.

Now I would like to find my received messages, (there's well over 1200 archived in various folders)

[Young Werther]

Help! My 16 year old shares the machine and uses AOL for her messaging. Will restoring her account be "difficult?"

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[TruthShallSetYouFree]

Look for files which end with .dbx.
For instance, the inbox.dbx file should have your current messages. Copy the old inbox. dbx file (it should be fairly large) into the same directory where your new (empty) inbox.dbx is. You should change the name of the empty inbox.dbx to inbox.sav or something like that, in case this doesn't work and you want to revert back.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Will restoring her [ AOL ] account be "difficult?"

Not if my experience is any example. I changed ISPs this year form AOL to MSN and removed anything resembling AOL from my computer. Deleted it all. It still comes back at the most unexpected times. I can be working away on my MSN and click on an imbedded link somewhere and AOL pops up and tries to take over my machine again -- even offereing to send waiting emails. It's very irritating and I'd reallylike to get rid of it.

[Rate_Determining_Step]

copy the files from the directory

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{GUID}\Microsoft\Outlook Express

to the new directory.

The {GUID} is the "Global Unique Identifier" for that "profile". It's something like this:

{9EBF757E-78B1-45C3-8A12-F6426226B006}

You can just copy these files over to the new location. If you backed them up from a CD-ROM, make sure you take off the read-only bit or else OE will GP fault.

[proxy_user]

Sometimes if you copy them it doesn't work. I think they may be stamped to your identity. This seems to be particularly true of the Indox.

You're much better off using the import function.

[jokar]

E-mail bunp

[fractal38]

You don't need to copy any files. You can execute any of the programs on your old disc (except windows). Click Start>My Computer and double click the icon for your old disc. Navigate through Program Files > Outlook Express to the icon for msimn. At this point, you can double click the icon to run the program, but since it is tiresome to navigate this way its probably better to set up a new icon on your desktop. Right click the msimn icon, click Send To>desktop and voila, you have two Outlook Express icons - one for your new version, the other for your old one with your legacy files.

[Young Werther]

Good suggestion but...Maybe in the course of importing the address book from the old Outlook on the F drive to the new Outlook on the C drive I "effected" the registry. When I follow your instructions the new version of the Outlook is launched!!

Thanks anyway. Maybe I need to broadcast to those who I wish to maintain touch with for them to resend e-mails that they sent to me.