Upgraded XP Loses OE Messages

Upgrading 98SE to XP Pro also upgrades OE 5 to OE 6, but you should not have lost your old email messages, OE 6 has probably created a new store folder - 98 & XP's default store folders are not in the same location.

Search for *.dbx files - you should find two sets - one from OE 5 and another from OE 6.

If this is the case you have two possible options -

In OE 6 File > Import - don't know if this works under these circumstances.

or

Point OE 6 to the location where your OE 5 messages are stored - Tools > Options > Maintenance > Store Folder and set the OE 5 store folder as the OE 6 store folder.

Otherwise have a look at Inside Outlook Express

HTH

 

The default storage location for E-mail related files is different in WinXP compared to Win98.

In Win98 it is in C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook Express\ "strange folder name "

If I remember correctly (have moved my own location), in WinXP it is in C:\Documents and Settings\ "Your Username "\Application Data\Identities\ "strange folder name "

You´ll know what I mean by "strange folder name" when You see it!

Try a search in Windows Explorer to see if You find anything in the Win98 location.

I´m not sure if You can delete* what is in the WinXP location and move what is in the Win98 location over so, let´s hope someone steps in and verifies that before You try it.

*) Maybe not deleting right away but move to a temporary folder.

Under any circumstances, make sure to create a restore point in System Restore before doing anything.

HTH,
Christer

 

From Pete's post:

I wouldn´t do that because if anything is in the Win98 location it will be replaced by what is in the WinXP location. You will probably move the new files to the old location and concequently destroy the old files.

Hopefully You´ll get a confirmation question if You want to do that.

Christer

 

I found the WARNING below in Inside OE / OE Store Folder :

Concerning the search in Windows Explorer, these files are hidden which means that under Start | Control Panel | Folder Options | View, You must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders.

I can not see any possibility to export the messages (if found in the Win98 location) using the function under "Archive" since it only works for the current messages.

I apologize for any confusion that I´ve caused,
Christer

 

Possibly even more confusion ...... ...... I found this on how to import a single *.dbx folder. It´s a good one which fools OE to believe it actually created the folder itself.

I dont think that You should try to delete the current inbox.dbx and rename the imported temp.dbx to inbox.dbx but You can rename it to anything else that is not a default folder-name.

I think that I´ll sit down and have a good peek into the InsideOE site.

Christer

 

That´s correct and the reason why I use Norton Ghost instead ...... ...... ! However, a restore point will, hopefully, protect OE and the system if it shouldn´t like the treatment. I have a faint memory of messing it up when trying myself and later in the evening I found support for it and posted a warning.

I would think that the "import a single *.dbx folder" will work. However, I don´t understand why it first should be named "temp" and then renamed to "what it´s wanted to be named" instead of going for the latter immediately?

Christer

 

dishon,
You´re welcome ...... ...... !

If You get Win98 back in working order with Your E-mails in place, then You should be able to export them to a file which can be burned to a CD and imported to the new system.

I´ve never done it myself but the option is in Archive > Export > Messages.

Christer

 

Today, I did a re-install of WinXP for a friend. Among the backed-up stuff was his complete E-mail storage.

After I had set up his E-mail account in Outlook Express, I re-created two subfolders under the inbox, which he had earlier and concequently in the backed-up E-mail storage.

In Windows Explorer, I moved the new files from the E-mail storage to a temp folder and next, I copied the old files from the backup to the E-mail storage.

It went well and OE works just fine with the old files. I think that it works when EVERYTHING is copied, including the cleanup.log. This does not upset the folders.dbx which keeps track of the different files.

If a single file is copied to the E-mail storage, then I believe it upsets folders.dbx.

The new files, moved to the temp folder, have been deleted.

Christer

 

By the way, as a preparation to backing up the old files, Compact Your OE Folders which actually cleans them up and makes them much smaller. In my case it saved som 120 MB!

Christer

 

Hi Zander!

You´re probably right that single files can be substituted. It says on Inside OE that some of these files will be recreated if missing and that deleting them actually is a means of correcting errors.

This is probably much simpler than it appears to be and neither did I understand why a file should first be named temp and then changed.

The two folders in OE that I recreated were user folders, not automatically created/recreated default folders. Since Inside OE do warn about "just copying or moving" the files, I thought that copying everything from the backup should work and it did. I didn´t experiment further since the misson was accomplished.

Christer