Newsgroup not starting at top, and how to import old emails from OE

[Steve Cochran]

Windows Mail and WLM cannot import from individual dbx files.

steve

I'm not sure if Windows Mail can import from .dbx files without the
presence of folders.dbx, but it is worth a try. One tricky part is that
Windows Mail tends to suggest the wrong OE folder to import from:
Go to http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx , scroll down to the section
called "Importing from Outlook Express" and note especially the
sentence in red.

--
Gary VanderMolen, Microsoft MVP (Mail)
Microsoft MVP program: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

Actually, I did not. I found the following in the website I referenced
below:

DBX files have names corresponding to their email mailbox; for example,
common names are Inbox.dbx, Sent Items.dbx, Drafts.dbx, and Deleted
Items.dbx; Folders.dbx stores the master index for all the mailboxes; if it
is missing, Outlook Express will re-index the mailboxes and recreate it

But I see that it says OE will recreate the index, and not Windows Mail.
I'll see if I can get that file and maybe then it will work. Thanks!

Paul

Did you include Folders.dbx in this backup? An import will fail without
it.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA

You seem to be laboring under some misconceptions.
The mail program that comes with Vista is called Windows Mail,
not Microsoft Mail.

Yes, I realize that now. Microsoft <> Windows

OE groups mail into DBX (not MDX) folders.

MDX I realize now is a multiple index file used in dBase IV and the
Borland database engine (which I use).

OE saves contacts in a WAB file.
Windows Mail can import from OE's DBX and WAB files.
OE can't be installed on a Vista computer.

I was able to import the WAB file with no problem.

I tried to import my DBX files which I have stored in
C:Users\Paul\Documents\Email. I choose Outlook Express 6 and navigate to
the folder but it says no files found, so it must be looking for a
different extension, or maybe it does not allow this folder as a valid
location. This is what I found in http://www.fileinfo.com/extension/dbx:

"DBX mail folders can be imported into Windows Mail (included with
Windows Vista) by selecting File → Import → Messages, then choosing
Import mail from an OE6 store directory and selecting the DBX folder you
would like to import."

I tried to open the file in explorer but there were no applicable
programs and the web search only indicated that the extension is used by
Outlook Express and Visual FoxPro as a database table.

I have another laptop computer with XP and OE. I can probably connect it
to my network, copy the email files over into the proper identity folder,
and then extract the emails I need. But I have a huge number of emails
going back to about 2003, and even though they are organized in folders
such as Inbox2006Q2, some of the DBX files (such as Inbox2009) are as
large as 250 MB. But once I have OE running I can organize them by date
and/or sender and extract only the ones that are important.

Which newsgroup has a problem with headers starting several rows
down from the top? I've never seen this.

It is rec.pets.dogs.behavior. It seems to select the same header each
time, and since it is far down in the list, it misses several at the top.
If I expand the window vertically far enough, the first header appears,
but the selection is still the same, at the bottom of the visible list. I
think I may have seen this occasionally on other newsgroups, but not now.

Thanks for your quick response!

Paul

--
Gary VanderMolen, Microsoft MVP (Mail)
Microsoft MVP program: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com


I have noticed that one newsgroup consistently shows the list of headers
starting several rows down from the top, while all others work
correctly.
This is just a minor annoyance, but any ideas why this is happening and
how
to correct it?

I was using Outlook Express on my XP machine until it died, so I
switched
everything to my Vista laptop which has Microsoft Mail. It seems just
about
the same, but all the emails and contacts are now separate files rather
than
the old MDX format. I found some software that can be purchased that
will
extract the emails into the new EML format, but I would think Microsoft
would have a built-in or freely available utility to do this, since both
are
their products and included in the OS. Can I also install OE on my Vista
computer and then save emails as EML?

Thanks!

Paul

 

[Steve Cochran]

They screwed things up when they went from OE to WinMail.

steve

 

[Steve Cochran]

You can clone that hard drive into a Virtual drive and then run it under virtual PC within the Win7 environment (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx). You could actually boot to it and run OE from there, or you could just grab the files off it that way also.

steve