Import from Outlook XP looses message formatting

[Guest]

I copied the pst files from my old XP system to Vista. I installed Outlook XP
(2002), and imported the messages into Windows Mail. The formatting in the
HTML messages has been lost - they appear as plain text, but with pictures
embedded. Messages downloaded by Windows Mail from the POP server are just
fine.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

 

[Hal Hostetler [MVP P/I]]

Did you re-connect the .PST file to Outlook, or did you import it into
Outlook when you copied it to Vista? Note that there are issues running
Outlook XP on Vista:

http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/vista.htm
Does Outlook work on Vista?

Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-Print/Imaging -- WA7BGX
http://www.kvoa.com -- "When News breaks, we fix it!"
KVOA Television, Tucson, AZ. NBC Channel 4
Still Cadillacin' - www.badnewsbluesband.com

 

[Guest]

Hal, thanks for responding...

Did you re-connect the .PST file to Outlook, or did you import it into
Outlook when you copied it to Vista?

I just copied the .PST files to Vista and opened them (File / Open / Outlook
data file) in Outlook. All the messages (and their formatting) seem to be
there OK, and the Windows Mail importer can see all the folders.

Does Outlook work on Vista?

To the limited extent that I have used it (see above), yes. I just installed
it from the Office XP disk, and it is running without activation while I
extract the messages.

 

[Hal Hostetler [MVP P/I]]

OK, instead off importing with Windows Mail, try exporting with Outlook.
The import/export functions of each application work differently, hence
you'll usually find one does a better job than the other for a given task.
When folks would want to transfer email and addresses from Outlook Express
to Outlook, for example, they got better results using OE to export messages
to Outlook; by contrast, they got better results using Outlook to import
addresses from OE. This may hold true for WM as well. My big concern was
that you did NOT import the .PST file into Outlook, you re-connected it.
Importing a .PST into Outlook is a sure fire way to corrupt the Outlook
profile in use and I'm very happy to be able to eliminate this from the
issue.

Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-Print/Imaging -- WA7BGX
http://www.kvoa.com -- "When News breaks, we fix it!"
KVOA Television, Tucson, AZ. NBC Channel 4
Still Cadillacin' - www.badnewsbluesband.com

 

[Guest]

OK, instead off importing with Windows Mail, try exporting with Outlook.

There doesn't seem to be a common format - Outlook will export to various
text files, Office formats, and .pst - Windows Mail will only import from
mail program files.

 

[Hal Hostetler [MVP P/I]]

Outlook will export to Outlook Express and this is what you want.

Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-Print/Imaging -- WA7BGX
http://www.kvoa.com -- "When News breaks, we fix it!"
KVOA Television, Tucson, AZ. NBC Channel 4
Still Cadillacin' - www.badnewsbluesband.com

 

[Guest]

Outlook will export to Outlook Express and this is what you want.

Apologies, Hal, but I can't figure this out. I can find many references on
how to import into Outlook Express from Outlook, but I can't find out how to
export to Outlook Express from Outlook. What am I missing?

 

[Hal Hostetler [MVP P/I]]

Nothing. My apologies, exporting to OE appears to have been removed. As
you may suspect, this is something I rarely do and it appears the rules have
changed since the last time I did it. There are some third party
applications that will do the job listed here:

http://www.slipstick.com/config/convmsg.htm
Converting Messages and Calendars

And, there's this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311129/en-us
ENT2001: How to Use IMAP to Move Messages Between a PC and a Macintosh in
Entourage, Outlook, or Outlook Express

Hal
--
Hal Hostetler, CPBE -- (e-mail address removed)
Senior Engineer/MIS -- MS MVP-Print/Imaging -- WA7BGX
http://www.kvoa.com -- "When News breaks, we fix it!"
KVOA Television, Tucson, AZ. NBC Channel 4
Still Cadillacin' - www.badnewsbluesband.com

 

[Guest]

http://www.slipstick.com/config/convmsg.htm

Thanks, Hal. Looking through the options above, I tried Transend. The trial
version did a good job, so I'll probably go with that.

It baffles me why the standard MS import function does not work correctly.
Someone has gone to the considerable trouble of converting HTML messages to
plain text - if they had left them alone everything would be just fine!