Import mail in to Outlook Express.

[NeilI]

My friend recently upgraded his computer from Windows ME to Windows XP pro. After looking at their new setup, I chortled as the computer shop must have run some sort of 'upgrade', as McAfee etc are all reporting errors due to a recently upgraded O/S.
The XP package is a proper 'full' version as opposed to an upgrade, so I assume the shop just ran the install through windows and upgraded. On a side note, it is an 'educator' edition, which is odd as neither of his parents are educators..
Anyway, the other shambles was the fact that only 1 user was installed for the whole family to work from, with outlook express being configured for 3 POP3 accounts, all flying in to the same inbox. Doh.

So, last night, we setup up a new user for each of his family and confiured outlook express accordingly. The point at which I became confused was, how would we import saved mails from different folders, from original user x to new user Y's account? Is this possible? We were a little short on time, so I didn't get to have a proper tinker. Is it easily do-able through the import option?

Also, they don't really have anything much saved on it as the upgrade was done a couple of weeks ago.
I am suggesting a proper install of XP, followed by the correct setting up for the family use. Yes?

Cheers for any help.

[atifds9]

this is a real problem, the only way i have found out is to actually copy the contents of the folder where they are stored(hence i use full outlook .pst files much easier to handle), the way to find out where they are stired is to right click on the inbox folder and go to properties, this will give u the location of the files, now u can copy and past the location from the properties window in to the location bar of windows explorer, it will take you to the folder where the are stored as dbx files, i.e inbox.dbx, you can then copy and past these in to the new inbox for each account, unelegent i know but it works

[atifds9]

bye the way if you have trouble doing it and get access denied, tried closing outlook once u get to the folder, if u still cant then do it in safe mode

[petrefax]

basically what atifds9 said, but serch your C:\ drive for *.dbx files since afaik only outlook express uses em, might be a bit quicker

i tend to agree with you that a full format / re-install XP would be good tho

[atifds9]

hmm thats strange just tested this and i found no files with .dbx, witch is very strange as they are there infront of me in explorer!!!!, it should have worked and would have been a lot easier to.

[directhex]

you need to specifically enable searching of system & hidden folders

[nichomach]

What's worked for me in the past is as follows:

The first thing I'd look at is separating out the different users' messages; these were sent to 3 separate POP3 accounts, so 3 separate mail addresses but all in the same inbox? Create 3 separate folders, then use the rules wizard to move messages to each folder dependent upon the To address (use each individual mail address) so mail for POP1 goes to folder1 etc. Then use File, Export, selected folders - you'll need to create new profiles to hold the personal folders that the export will create (Profile1 Profile2 etc). When prompted at the export of each folder, choose (or create) your profile with separate personal folders files for each user. Then when you've setup OE for each of the separate users, import the appropriate personal folders file for each user?

Anyway, a definite "yes" on the format and reinstall.

[NeilI]

Cheers guys, thats a great help!
We shall commmence tomorrow afternoon.
Hilariously, we were sorting out what needed saved yesterday and it appears his HD is still using FAT32.
Pfffft.

[lamda]

Users are sure to find in corrupted dbx and outlook express repairs tool, simple yet versatile, to solve potential problems and stay in control of damaged dbx files in the safe folder.