Importing Outlook inbox and subfolders into Vista's Mail

[Graham Hunter]

I failed to import my Outlook inbox and sub folders into Windows Mail after
reading and following the help file, which I found next to useless. I have
exported the inbox and subfolders to a usb drive and transferred them onto
the Vista computer (desktop). Importing from here creates an empty folder in
Windows Mail. I copied the .pst file into
C:\users\graham\appdata\local\Microsoft\Windows mail and imported from here
with similar results.
I copied the backup.pst file into
C:\users\graham\appdata\local\Microsoft\Windows mail\local folders and
imported from here also with only an empty folder to show for my efforts.

Where oh where Bill, does the backup.pst outlook file need to be for Windows
Mail to read it? I would greatly appreciate the assistance of a MVP for what
seems to be a simple task.

Graham.

 

[Frank Saunders MS-MVP IE,OE/WM]

I failed to import my Outlook inbox and sub folders into Windows Mail after
reading and following the help file, which I found next to useless. I have
exported the inbox and subfolders to a usb drive and transferred them onto
the Vista computer (desktop). Importing from here creates an empty folder
in
Windows Mail. I copied the .pst file into
C:\users\graham\appdata\local\Microsoft\Windows mail and imported from
here with similar results.
I copied the backup.pst file into
C:\users\graham\appdata\local\Microsoft\Windows mail\local folders and
imported from here also with only an empty folder to show for my efforts.

Where oh where Bill, does the backup.pst outlook file need to be for
Windows
Mail to read it? I would greatly appreciate the assistance of a MVP for
what
seems to be a simple task.

Graham.

Windows Mail cannot import from a PST file unless Outlook is installed and
using that file as its default.

 

[Guest]

I failed to import my Outlook inbox and sub folders into Windows Mail after
reading and following the help file, which I found next to useless. I have
exported the inbox and subfolders to a usb drive and transferred them onto
the Vista computer (desktop). Importing from here creates an empty folder
in
Windows Mail. I copied the .pst file into
C:\users\graham\appdata\local\Microsoft\Windows mail and imported from
here with similar results.
I copied the backup.pst file into
C:\users\graham\appdata\local\Microsoft\Windows mail\local folders and
imported from here also with only an empty folder to show for my efforts.

Where oh where Bill, does the backup.pst outlook file need to be for
Windows
Mail to read it? I would greatly appreciate the assistance of a MVP for
what
seems to be a simple task.

Graham.

Nobody from Microsoft seems to read this newsgroup. They leave it to
Windows Mail users to help each other, and sometimes give the best
ones the title of MVP but no money to go along with it.

Windows Mail has problems importing directly from Outlook files.
You have two choices of what to do about it: 1. Install Outlook,
preferably version 2003 or later, under Vista. Version 2002 will
also run under Vista, but with a few problems. Windows Mail needs to
use part of Outlook to be able to understand .pst files. 2. Import the
messages from Outlook to Outlook Express on your old computer.
Then import them from Outlook Express to Windows Mail:

<http://www.askmehelpdesk.com/email/import-dbx-files-outlook-express-windows-mail-vista-86458.html>

<http://www.vista4beginners.com/Migrate-from-Outlook-Express-to-Windows-Mail>

Bring along the .wab file if you want your old contacts. After you
copy the files to a directory on the hard drive of your Vista computer,
but before you import them into Windows Mail, make sure the copies
are read-write instead of readonly.

 

[Dave]

You can only import a .pst file if you also have Outlook installed on
the Vista computer.
You can install Outlook, copy the .pst to the Vista computer, open the .pst
with Outlook, then you can import into Windows Mail.

Or,
If you have Outlook installed on an XP computer, import the .pst data into
Outlook Express, copy the .dbx files and .wab file to the Vista computer,
and import into Windows Mail.