Outook Express Folder

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sirius
  • Start date Start date
I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox. I can
not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not really matter.

Bruce Hagen said:
Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Sirius said:
Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

Bruce Hagen said:
This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx file in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this). Go to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your new OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the file from
the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder in the left
pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file to a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed again,
just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see if it
will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If not, see
if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the message store
and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it into
Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB) are by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer, you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start | Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the top of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the *exact* same
name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new folder and then
close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows Explorer and
Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to the OE store
folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx files. Prompt - "Do
you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in another
identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do this, fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open OE and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None life-threatening, but
read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Sirius said:
I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox. I can
not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not really matter.

Bruce Hagen said:
Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Sirius said:
Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx file in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this). Go to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your new OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder in the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file to a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed again,
just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see if it
will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it into
Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB) are by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer, you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start | Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the top of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the *exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new folder and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to the OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in case. It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



Bruce Hagen said:
OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in another
identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do this, fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open OE and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Sirius said:
I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox. I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not really
matter.

Bruce Hagen said:
Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx file in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this). Go to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your new OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder in the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file to a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it
into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB) are by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer, you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start | Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the top of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the *exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new folder and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to the OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
One of the consequences is losing your folder hierarchy. Moving it does the
same and you do not want to move it back.

Were these not subfolders of the Inbox? If the Inbox was completely missing,
what were they subfolders of?

You didn't mean that your had an Inbox, but it was empty, I hope?

You need to drag the subfolders back to where they were.

Afraid to ask, but is the Inbox back with it's messages?
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Sirius said:
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in case. It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



Bruce Hagen said:
OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do
this, fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open OE and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Sirius said:
I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox. I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx file in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this). Go to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your new OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder in the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file to a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it
into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB) are
by default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer,
you must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start |
Control Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the top of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the *exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new folder and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to the OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
If you close OE again, and then reopen OE again, does it still take a long
time (I mean with the newly created folders.dbx file?) If so, you may
need to run compaction on the mail folders in OE (Maintenance, Clean Up Now,
Compact), unless there is something wrong with that too.
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in case. It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



Bruce Hagen said:
OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another
identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do this, fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open OE and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Sirius said:
I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox. I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx file in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this). Go to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your new OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder in the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file to a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it
into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB) are
by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer, you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start | Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the top of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the *exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new folder and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to the OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
This is my friend's computer, so I am not sure
what did the folder hierarchy look like (just a vague memory) before the
problem started and where the subs go. I was only guessing they go in the
inbox, I have them that way on my pc.
She has several hundred subfolders and just in the inbox
more than 800 messages - still there.

(My friend is nuts saving all her messages.
The size of the email folder is 149GB!!, the L drive is almost full)

I guess she can put the subfolders back where she wants them.

Originally she had no Inbox whatsoever. The Inbox of the new "test" identity
was empty until I copied over the inbox.dbx from the old Identity. I hope
that answers your question.

Yes, the Inbox is back, has a lot of messages.
The old folders.dbx was 777kb, the new rebuilt one is only
202kb. I don't know if that's good or bad.

Do you know Dr Web Cure It? Also a good Malware scanner.




Bruce Hagen said:
One of the consequences is losing your folder hierarchy. Moving it does
the same and you do not want to move it back.

Were these not subfolders of the Inbox? If the Inbox was completely
missing, what were they subfolders of?

You didn't mean that your had an Inbox, but it was empty, I hope?

You need to drag the subfolders back to where they were.

Afraid to ask, but is the Inbox back with it's messages?
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Sirius said:
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in case. It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



Bruce Hagen said:
OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do
this, fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open OE
and see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox. I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx file
in the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this). Go
to Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your new
OE identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the
file from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder
in the left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click
Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file to a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the
message store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location
down and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste
it into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB) are
by default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer,
you must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start |
Control Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx
file for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the
top of the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the
*exact* same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new
folder and then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to
Windows Explorer and Click Desktop and drag the file from the
Desktop to the OE store folder that you clicked on to reveal
the .dbx files. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."?
Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag the
dbx file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
FYI. Clean Up Now /only/ compacts news folders, not OE local folders.

To compact /all/ folders:

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch anything until
the compacting is completed.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Bill in Co. said:
If you close OE again, and then reopen OE again, does it still take a long
time (I mean with the newly created folders.dbx file?) If so, you may
need to run compaction on the mail folders in OE (Maintenance, Clean Up
Now, Compact), unless there is something wrong with that too.
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in case. It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



Bruce Hagen said:
OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another
identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do this,
fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open OE
and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox. I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx file
in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this). Go
to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your new OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder in
the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file to a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the
message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location
down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it
into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB) are
by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer, you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start |
Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx
file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the top
of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the *exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new folder and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to the OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag the
dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
Why didn't I think of that. The second time it-OE opened fast, thank you.

Bill in Co. said:
If you close OE again, and then reopen OE again, does it still take a long
time (I mean with the newly created folders.dbx file?) If so, you may
need to run compaction on the mail folders in OE (Maintenance, Clean Up
Now, Compact), unless there is something wrong with that too.
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in case. It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



Bruce Hagen said:
OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another
identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do this,
fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open OE
and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox. I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx file
in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this). Go
to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your new OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder in
the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file to a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the
message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location
down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it
into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB) are
by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer, you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start |
Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx
file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the top
of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the *exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new folder and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to the OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag the
dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
You can do the same thing the way I said, Bruce. "Tools, Options, Clean
Up Now, Compact", and it compacts ALL folders (Mail and News).

Bruce said:
FYI. Clean Up Now /only/ compacts news folders, not OE local folders.

To compact /all/ folders:

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch anything
until
the compacting is completed.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Bill in Co. said:
If you close OE again, and then reopen OE again, does it still take a
long
time (I mean with the newly created folders.dbx file?) If so, you may
need to run compaction on the mail folders in OE (Maintenance, Clean Up
Now, Compact), unless there is something wrong with that too.
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in case.
It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another
identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do this,
fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open OE
and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None
life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox. I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx file
in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this). Go
to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your new
OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder in
the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file to
a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see
if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If
not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the
message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location
down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it
into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB) are
by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer,
you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start |
Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx
file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the top
of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the *exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new folder and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows
Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to the
OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder
from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag the
dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even
help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
Is 149GB the size of the entire message store folder? As long as no
individual folder is bloated, that should not be a problem, but jeez, what a
pack-rat. (Nothing personal intended).
The old folders.dbx was 777kb, the new rebuilt one is only
202kb. I don't know if that's good or bad.

If you have all the messages, that is /very/ good.
Do you know Dr Web Cure It? Also a good Malware scanner.

Not familiar with it, but that doesn't mean it isn't good.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As of now, does it appear that all messages are back? If so, your friend may
want to consider archiving in a separate identity. Build up a folder(s) and
import them to another ID once in awhile and keep the active ID for current
messages.

They can also be saved outside of OE.

To backup messages to Desktop folders, or a readable CD:

Create a folder on your Desktop, then in Outlook Express open the folder
with the messages you want to save. Highlight one message, then Ctrl+A will
highlight them all, (or hold the Ctrl button down while you select only the
messages you want), Now, drag and drop them to the folder on your Desktop.
(Easiest if the folder shortcut is on the Taskbar).

Now you can copy that folder to a CD and you will be able to read the
messages on the CD by double-clicking on them.

The downside of this is that messages that have the same subject will be
overwritten. To avoid this, purchase:

DBXtract:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx

Regardless of my suggestions above, be sure to follow this advice,
especially the backup program.

General precautions for Outlook Express:

Do not archive mail in default OE folders. They will eventually become
corrupt. Create your own user defined folders for storing mail and move your
mail to them. Empty Deleted Items folder regularly. Keep user created
folders under 100MB, and Default folders as empty as is feasible.

After you are done, follow up by compacting your folders manually while
working *offline* and do it often.

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch anything until
the compacting is completed.

Turn off e-mail scanning in your anti-virus program. It is a redundant layer
of protection that eats up CPUs and causes a multitude of problems such as
time-outs and account setting changes. Your up-to-date A/V program will
continue to protect you sufficiently. For more, see:
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#3

In Tools | Options | Maintenance: Uncheck Compact messages in background and
leave it unchecked. {N/A if running XP/SP2}.

And backup often.

Outlook Express Quick Backup (OEQB Freeware)
http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




Sirius said:
This is my friend's computer, so I am not sure
what did the folder hierarchy look like (just a vague memory) before the
problem started and where the subs go. I was only guessing they go in the
inbox, I have them that way on my pc.
She has several hundred subfolders and just in the inbox
more than 800 messages - still there.

(My friend is nuts saving all her messages.
The size of the email folder is 149GB!!, the L drive is almost full)

I guess she can put the subfolders back where she wants them.

Originally she had no Inbox whatsoever. The Inbox of the new "test"
identity was empty until I copied over the inbox.dbx from the old
Identity. I hope that answers your question.

Yes, the Inbox is back, has a lot of messages.
The old folders.dbx was 777kb, the new rebuilt one is only
202kb. I don't know if that's good or bad.

Do you know Dr Web Cure It? Also a good Malware scanner.




Bruce Hagen said:

One of the consequences is losing your folder hierarchy. Moving it does
the same and you do not want to move it back.

Were these not subfolders of the Inbox? If the Inbox was completely
missing, what were they subfolders of?

You didn't mean that your had an Inbox, but it was empty, I hope?

You need to drag the subfolders back to where they were.

Afraid to ask, but is the Inbox back with it's messages?
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Sirius said:
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in case.
It took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do
this, fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open OE
and see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None
life-threatening, but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox. I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx file
in the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this). Go
to Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your
new OE identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag
the file from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store
folder in the left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to
overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file to
a location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see
if it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If
not, see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the
message store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location
down and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and
paste it into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB) are
by default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer,
you must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start |
Control Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx
file for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the
top of the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the
*exact* same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new
folder and then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to
Windows Explorer and Click Desktop and drag the file from the
Desktop to the OE store folder that you clicked on to reveal
the .dbx files. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."?
Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder
from it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag
the dbx file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even
help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
Then that is because the first time it had to read all the dbx files in to
create that new Folders.dbx file. Unfortunately, after rebuilding the
folders.dbx file, the subfolder hiearchary is lost, and you'll have to
recreate it, if you want that back again (by cut and paste or dragging the
folders in OE)

Still, it's a good idea to run the compact routine, as I already outlined.
Do it periodically, too, to keep the dbx files small. And just to be
safe, DON'T run the Compaction routine while you are multitasking or doing
anything else.

Why didn't I think of that. The second time it-OE opened fast, thank you.

Bill in Co. said:
If you close OE again, and then reopen OE again, does it still take a
long
time (I mean with the newly created folders.dbx file?) If so, you may
need to run compaction on the mail folders in OE (Maintenance, Clean Up
Now, Compact), unless there is something wrong with that too.
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in case.
It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another
identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do this,
fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open OE
and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None
life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox. I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx file
in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this). Go
to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your new
OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder in
the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file to
a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see
if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If
not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the
message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location
down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it
into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB) are
by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer,
you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start |
Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx
file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the top
of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the *exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new folder and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows
Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to the
OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder
from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag the
dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even
help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
Bill. No it will not. Test it.

Make a note of the dbx file size of Deleted Items. Then empty Deleted Items.
The size is the same, correct? Now compact the way you suggest and check the
size. Still the same, no? Compact manually as I suggested and the empty
Deleted Items.dbx file should now be 187KB. (An empty Deleted Items.dbx file
size).
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Bill in Co. said:
You can do the same thing the way I said, Bruce. "Tools, Options, Clean
Up Now, Compact", and it compacts ALL folders (Mail and News).

Bruce said:
FYI. Clean Up Now /only/ compacts news folders, not OE local folders.

To compact /all/ folders:

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch anything
until
the compacting is completed.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Bill in Co. said:
If you close OE again, and then reopen OE again, does it still take a
long
time (I mean with the newly created folders.dbx file?) If so, you may
need to run compaction on the mail folders in OE (Maintenance, Clean Up
Now, Compact), unless there is something wrong with that too.

Sirius wrote:
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in case.
It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another
identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do this,
fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open OE
and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None
life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox.
I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx file
in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this). Go
to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your new
OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the
file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder in
the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file to
a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see
if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the
normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If
not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the
message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location
down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste it
into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB)
are
by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer,
you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start |
Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx
file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the top
of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the
*exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new folder
and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows
Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to the
OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder
from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag the
dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even
help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
I DID test it. No, it's not the same. It's reduced.

I do this almost on a daily basis, and have often checked the sizes in
Windows Explorer. At least on my version of OE (with SP2), and in all the
previous versions I've used, what I said is what happens.

When you say "compact manually", that's essentially what I'm doing by the
steps I already enumerated. You don't have to go offline, or select it the
way you mentioned; "you can get there from here" by the way I stated, too.
Try it yourself if you don't believe me.



Bruce said:
Bill. No it will not. Test it.

Make a note of the dbx file size of Deleted Items. Then empty Deleted
Items.
The size is the same, correct? Now compact the way you suggest and check
the
size. Still the same, no? Compact manually as I suggested and the empty
Deleted Items.dbx file should now be 187KB. (An empty Deleted Items.dbx
file
size).
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Bill in Co. said:
You can do the same thing the way I said, Bruce. "Tools, Options,
Clean
Up Now, Compact", and it compacts ALL folders (Mail and News).

Bruce said:
FYI. Clean Up Now /only/ compacts news folders, not OE local folders.

To compact /all/ folders:

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch anything
until
the compacting is completed.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


If you close OE again, and then reopen OE again, does it still take a
long
time (I mean with the newly created folders.dbx file?) If so, you
may
need to run compaction on the mail folders in OE (Maintenance, Clean Up
Now, Compact), unless there is something wrong with that too.

Sirius wrote:
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in case.
It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another
identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do this,
fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open OE
and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None
life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox.
I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not
really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx
file
in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this).
Go
to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your new
OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the
file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder in
the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file
to
a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see
if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the
normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If
not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the
message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal
the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location
down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste
it
into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB)
are
by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer,
you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start |
Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx
file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the
top
of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the
*exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new folder
and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows
Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to the
OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder
from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag the
dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even
help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
Thank you all for your help. I hope others will benefit from this long
thread also. I will try to get my friend into the habit of backing up her
email.

Bruce Hagen said:
Is 149GB the size of the entire message store folder? As long as no
individual folder is bloated, that should not be a problem, but jeez, what
a pack-rat. (Nothing personal intended).
The old folders.dbx was 777kb, the new rebuilt one is only
202kb. I don't know if that's good or bad.

If you have all the messages, that is /very/ good.
Do you know Dr Web Cure It? Also a good Malware scanner.

Not familiar with it, but that doesn't mean it isn't good.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As of now, does it appear that all messages are back? If so, your friend
may want to consider archiving in a separate identity. Build up a
folder(s) and import them to another ID once in awhile and keep the active
ID for current messages.

They can also be saved outside of OE.

To backup messages to Desktop folders, or a readable CD:

Create a folder on your Desktop, then in Outlook Express open the folder
with the messages you want to save. Highlight one message, then Ctrl+A
will highlight them all, (or hold the Ctrl button down while you select
only the messages you want), Now, drag and drop them to the folder on your
Desktop. (Easiest if the folder shortcut is on the Taskbar).

Now you can copy that folder to a CD and you will be able to read the
messages on the CD by double-clicking on them.

The downside of this is that messages that have the same subject will be
overwritten. To avoid this, purchase:

DBXtract:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx

Regardless of my suggestions above, be sure to follow this advice,
especially the backup program.

General precautions for Outlook Express:

Do not archive mail in default OE folders. They will eventually become
corrupt. Create your own user defined folders for storing mail and move
your mail to them. Empty Deleted Items folder regularly. Keep user created
folders under 100MB, and Default folders as empty as is feasible.

After you are done, follow up by compacting your folders manually while
working *offline* and do it often.

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch anything
until the compacting is completed.

Turn off e-mail scanning in your anti-virus program. It is a redundant
layer of protection that eats up CPUs and causes a multitude of problems
such as time-outs and account setting changes. Your up-to-date A/V program
will continue to protect you sufficiently. For more, see:
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#3

In Tools | Options | Maintenance: Uncheck Compact messages in background
and leave it unchecked. {N/A if running XP/SP2}.

And backup often.

Outlook Express Quick Backup (OEQB Freeware)
http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




Sirius said:
This is my friend's computer, so I am not sure
what did the folder hierarchy look like (just a vague memory) before the
problem started and where the subs go. I was only guessing they go in the
inbox, I have them that way on my pc.
She has several hundred subfolders and just in the inbox
more than 800 messages - still there.

(My friend is nuts saving all her messages.
The size of the email folder is 149GB!!, the L drive is almost full)

I guess she can put the subfolders back where she wants them.

Originally she had no Inbox whatsoever. The Inbox of the new "test"
identity was empty until I copied over the inbox.dbx from the old
Identity. I hope that answers your question.

Yes, the Inbox is back, has a lot of messages.
The old folders.dbx was 777kb, the new rebuilt one is only
202kb. I don't know if that's good or bad.

Do you know Dr Web Cure It? Also a good Malware scanner.




Bruce Hagen said:
Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx

One of the consequences is losing your folder hierarchy. Moving it does
the same and you do not want to move it back.

Were these not subfolders of the Inbox? If the Inbox was completely
missing, what were they subfolders of?

You didn't mean that your had an Inbox, but it was empty, I hope?

You need to drag the subfolders back to where they were.

Afraid to ask, but is the Inbox back with it's messages?
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in case.
It took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do
this, fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open OE
and see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None
life-threatening, but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox.
I can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not
really matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx file
in the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this). Go
to Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your
new OE identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag
the file from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store
folder in the left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to
overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see
if it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the
normal location of the message store. Was it moved at one
time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If
not, see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the
message store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location
down and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and
paste it into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB)
are by default marked as hidden. To view these files in
Explorer, you must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders
under Start | Control Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx
file for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at
the top of the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with
the *exact* same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the
new folder and then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to
Windows Explorer and Click Desktop and drag the file from
the Desktop to the OE store folder that you clicked on to
reveal the .dbx files. Prompt - "Do you want to
overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder
from it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag
the dbx file to a location on that drive and not the
Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even
help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
Ooops. My bad. I just did the test and you're right, Bruce, so my
apologies.

I wonder if this is something new since SP2? I don't remember seeing this
behavior before, when I was using OE6 (before going to XP, SP2), when they
removed that Autocompaction thing that I want back!!!

I DID test it (but evidently not very recently!!). Corrected.
Bruce said:
Bill. No it will not. Test it.

Make a note of the dbx file size of Deleted Items. Then empty Deleted
Items.
The size is the same, correct? Now compact the way you suggest and check
the
size. Still the same, no? Compact manually as I suggested and the empty
Deleted Items.dbx file should now be 187KB. (An empty Deleted Items.dbx
file
size).
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Bill in Co. said:
You can do the same thing the way I said, Bruce. "Tools, Options,
Clean
Up Now, Compact", and it compacts ALL folders (Mail and News).

Bruce Hagen wrote:
FYI. Clean Up Now /only/ compacts news folders, not OE local folders.

To compact /all/ folders:

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders
are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch anything
until
the compacting is completed.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


If you close OE again, and then reopen OE again, does it still take a
long
time (I mean with the newly created folders.dbx file?) If so, you
may
need to run compaction on the mail folders in OE (Maintenance, Clean
Up
Now, Compact), unless there is something wrong with that too.

Sirius wrote:
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in
case.
It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all
your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another
identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do this,
fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open
OE
and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None
life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the
Inbox.
I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not
really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx
file
in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this).
Go
to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your
new
OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the
file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder
in
the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click
Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file
to
a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does,
see
if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the
normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If
not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the
message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal
the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location
down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste
it
into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB)
are
by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer,
you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start |
Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx
file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the
top
of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the
*exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new folder
and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows
Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to
the
OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder
from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag
the
dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even
help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
Not that OE isn't strange, but you must have a very strange version. (Looks
like you're missing an XP/SP2 OE update by your message headers, but that is
OT).

Just to be certain, I did just test it myself. (CRS can occur at any time).

Clean up now /only/ does news messages. You see Local Folders there, but
when you click on Browse, there is nothing listed except newsgroups.

From OE Help:

To increase disk space by deleting stored newsgroup messages

1.. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2.. On the Maintenance tab, select the options you want for maintaining
the size of all message files on your computer.
To compact, delete, or remove messages from all or specific message files
now, click Clean Up Now, and then follow the instructions on the screen.

Note

a.. Most news servers periodically remove old messages. The next time you
connect to a newsgroup you've cleaned up, your message file contains just
the current messages from your news server.

And you don't have to go offline when you compact, but if you receive a
message while compacting is taking place, you can easily wipe out an entire
folder, most likely the Inbox.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

How do I delete old newsgroup headers?
http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/how.htm#delnews
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA



Bill in Co. said:
I DID test it. No, it's not the same. It's reduced.

I do this almost on a daily basis, and have often checked the sizes in
Windows Explorer. At least on my version of OE (with SP2), and in all
the previous versions I've used, what I said is what happens.

When you say "compact manually", that's essentially what I'm doing by the
steps I already enumerated. You don't have to go offline, or select it
the way you mentioned; "you can get there from here" by the way I stated,
too. Try it yourself if you don't believe me.



Bruce said:
Bill. No it will not. Test it.

Make a note of the dbx file size of Deleted Items. Then empty Deleted
Items.
The size is the same, correct? Now compact the way you suggest and check
the
size. Still the same, no? Compact manually as I suggested and the empty
Deleted Items.dbx file should now be 187KB. (An empty Deleted Items.dbx
file
size).
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Bill in Co. said:
You can do the same thing the way I said, Bruce. "Tools, Options,
Clean
Up Now, Compact", and it compacts ALL folders (Mail and News).

Bruce Hagen wrote:
FYI. Clean Up Now /only/ compacts news folders, not OE local folders.

To compact /all/ folders:

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders
are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch anything
until
the compacting is completed.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


If you close OE again, and then reopen OE again, does it still take a
long
time (I mean with the newly created folders.dbx file?) If so, you
may
need to run compaction on the mail folders in OE (Maintenance, Clean
Up
Now, Compact), unless there is something wrong with that too.

Sirius wrote:
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in
case.
It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all
your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another
identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do this,
fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open
OE
and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None
life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the
Inbox.
I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not
really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx
file
in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this).
Go
to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your
new
OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the
file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder
in
the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click
Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file
to
a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does,
see
if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the
normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If
not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the
message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal
the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the location
down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste
it
into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB)
are
by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in Explorer,
you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start |
Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx
file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the
top
of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the
*exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new folder
and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows
Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to
the
OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder
from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag
the
dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even
help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
You're welcome & good luck.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Sirius said:
Thank you all for your help. I hope others will benefit from this long
thread also. I will try to get my friend into the habit of backing up her
email.

Bruce Hagen said:
Is 149GB the size of the entire message store folder? As long as no
individual folder is bloated, that should not be a problem, but jeez,
what a pack-rat. (Nothing personal intended).
The old folders.dbx was 777kb, the new rebuilt one is only
202kb. I don't know if that's good or bad.

If you have all the messages, that is /very/ good.
Do you know Dr Web Cure It? Also a good Malware scanner.

Not familiar with it, but that doesn't mean it isn't good.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As of now, does it appear that all messages are back? If so, your friend
may want to consider archiving in a separate identity. Build up a
folder(s) and import them to another ID once in awhile and keep the
active ID for current messages.

They can also be saved outside of OE.

To backup messages to Desktop folders, or a readable CD:

Create a folder on your Desktop, then in Outlook Express open the folder
with the messages you want to save. Highlight one message, then Ctrl+A
will highlight them all, (or hold the Ctrl button down while you select
only the messages you want), Now, drag and drop them to the folder on
your Desktop. (Easiest if the folder shortcut is on the Taskbar).

Now you can copy that folder to a CD and you will be able to read the
messages on the CD by double-clicking on them.

The downside of this is that messages that have the same subject will be
overwritten. To avoid this, purchase:

DBXtract:
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/Default.aspx

Regardless of my suggestions above, be sure to follow this advice,
especially the backup program.

General precautions for Outlook Express:

Do not archive mail in default OE folders. They will eventually become
corrupt. Create your own user defined folders for storing mail and move
your mail to them. Empty Deleted Items folder regularly. Keep user
created folders under 100MB, and Default folders as empty as is feasible.

After you are done, follow up by compacting your folders manually while
working *offline* and do it often.

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch anything
until the compacting is completed.

Turn off e-mail scanning in your anti-virus program. It is a redundant
layer of protection that eats up CPUs and causes a multitude of problems
such as time-outs and account setting changes. Your up-to-date A/V
program will continue to protect you sufficiently. For more, see:
http://www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#3

In Tools | Options | Maintenance: Uncheck Compact messages in background
and leave it unchecked. {N/A if running XP/SP2}.

And backup often.

Outlook Express Quick Backup (OEQB Freeware)
http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




Sirius said:
This is my friend's computer, so I am not sure
what did the folder hierarchy look like (just a vague memory) before the
problem started and where the subs go. I was only guessing they go in
the inbox, I have them that way on my pc.
She has several hundred subfolders and just in the inbox
more than 800 messages - still there.

(My friend is nuts saving all her messages.
The size of the email folder is 149GB!!, the L drive is almost full)

I guess she can put the subfolders back where she wants them.

Originally she had no Inbox whatsoever. The Inbox of the new "test"
identity was empty until I copied over the inbox.dbx from the old
Identity. I hope that answers your question.

Yes, the Inbox is back, has a lot of messages.
The old folders.dbx was 777kb, the new rebuilt one is only
202kb. I don't know if that's good or bad.

Do you know Dr Web Cure It? Also a good Malware scanner.




Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx

One of the consequences is losing your folder hierarchy. Moving it does
the same and you do not want to move it back.

Were these not subfolders of the Inbox? If the Inbox was completely
missing, what were they subfolders of?

You didn't mean that your had an Inbox, but it was empty, I hope?

You need to drag the subfolders back to where they were.

Afraid to ask, but is the Inbox back with it's messages?
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in case.
It took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do
this, fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open OE
and see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None
life-threatening, but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the Inbox.
I can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not
really matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx
file in the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this).
Go to Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for
your new OE identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and
drag the file from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE
store folder in the left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to
overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does, see
if it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the
normal location of the message store. Was it moved at one
time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If
not, see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in
the message store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal
the location of your Outlook Express files. Write the
location down and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or,
copy and paste it into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB)
are by default marked as hidden. To view these files in
Explorer, you must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders
under Start | Control Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the dbx
file for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at
the top of the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder
with the *exact* same name as the one on your Desktop. Open
the new folder and then close OE. (You must do this). Go
back to Windows Explorer and Click Desktop and drag the
file from the Desktop to the OE store folder that you
clicked on to reveal the .dbx files. Prompt - "Do you want
to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder
from it's default location on drive C to another drive,
drag the dbx file to a location on that drive and not the
Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even
help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
You'll se a reply from me time stamped before this one, so now it is moot.

Do you really want background compacting back? The #1 cause of losing
messages.

Why does OE insist on compacting folders when I close it?:
http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/why.htm#compact

About File Corruption:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/community/columns/filecorruption.mspx

Compacting your folders periodically is a must to keep OE functioning well
and at some point, you may lose all your saved messages if you don't. When
you delete, or move messages, the space they had used remains until you
compact.

***Never touch anything until the compacting is finished.***

See:
www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#2

With SP2, automatic background compacting was removed due to problems it
caused. Now you will get a prompt to compact after 100 OE closings, which
you should do, and don't touch anything until it has finished. If you
compact manually, at your convenience, this will also set the counter back
to zero. See this for more information:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

If you are fully patched, you will also now see a copy of your dbx files
being copied to the Recycle Bin as BAK files. Should something go awry when
compacting, the messages can easily be restored from this backup. A manual
compact will also reset the counter in the registry back to zero now.

For more info, see the information outlined in red here:
www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#2
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Bill in Co. said:
Ooops. My bad. I just did the test and you're right, Bruce, so my
apologies.

I wonder if this is something new since SP2? I don't remember seeing
this behavior before, when I was using OE6 (before going to XP, SP2), when
they removed that Autocompaction thing that I want back!!!

I DID test it (but evidently not very recently!!). Corrected.
Bruce said:
Bill. No it will not. Test it.

Make a note of the dbx file size of Deleted Items. Then empty Deleted
Items.
The size is the same, correct? Now compact the way you suggest and check
the
size. Still the same, no? Compact manually as I suggested and the empty
Deleted Items.dbx file should now be 187KB. (An empty Deleted Items.dbx
file
size).
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


You can do the same thing the way I said, Bruce. "Tools, Options,
Clean
Up Now, Compact", and it compacts ALL folders (Mail and News).

Bruce Hagen wrote:
FYI. Clean Up Now /only/ compacts news folders, not OE local folders.

To compact /all/ folders:

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders
are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch anything
until
the compacting is completed.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


If you close OE again, and then reopen OE again, does it still take a
long
time (I mean with the newly created folders.dbx file?) If so, you
may
need to run compaction on the mail folders in OE (Maintenance, Clean
Up
Now, Compact), unless there is something wrong with that too.

Sirius wrote:
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in
case.
It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all
your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another
identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do this,
fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open
OE
and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None
life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the
Inbox.
I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not
really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx
file
in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do this).
Go
to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your
new
OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the
file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder
in
the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click
Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx file
to
a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not
listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does,
see
if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but
no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the
normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items. If
not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the
message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal
the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the
location
down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and paste
it
into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and WAB)
are
by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in
Explorer,
you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start |
Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the
dbx
file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the
top
of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the
*exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new folder
and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows
Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to
the
OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx
files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder
from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag
the
dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even
help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
Yeah, I saw your reply Bruce. I know the reason they removed it, but for
me, I appreciated having it done automatically, and was always VERY careful
to NOT be doing anything else after opening OE each time and waiting a
minute or two, before running any other programs.

Also, (and now I'm not so sure), I had thought that prior to this SP2
version I *was* able to reduce the deleted box folder size by simply running
compact the way I mentioned., But again, this is BEFORE the SP2 addition,
when they added that Recycle Bin backup thing, and also removed the
autocompaction option.

If I could reset that OE compaction registry counter to "0" each time,
instead of "100", maybe that would accomplish the same goal (of each time I
open OE, it would automatically run autocompaction for me).

Or if not "0" for the counter, maybe something MUCH lower, like 5 for the
counter. "100" (decimal) is WAY too excessive. But I think I read
somewhere that that counter was hard coded into OE, so, I guess I can't?

Hmmm. I suppose I could always try reinstalling an older version of OE6
(that didn't have that blasted SP2 update on it). That probably would
cause some other problems, though.

It's just that having to do this manually AND empty the Recycle Bin each
night or two is a drag (when it doesn't have to be). (I use OE a lot).

Bill


Bruce said:
You'll se a reply from me time stamped before this one, so now it is moot.

Do you really want background compacting back? The #1 cause of losing
messages.

Why does OE insist on compacting folders when I close it?:
http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/why.htm#compact

About File Corruption:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/community/columns/filecorruption.mspx

Compacting your folders periodically is a must to keep OE functioning well
and at some point, you may lose all your saved messages if you don't. When
you delete, or move messages, the space they had used remains until you
compact.

***Never touch anything until the compacting is finished.***

See:
www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#2

With SP2, automatic background compacting was removed due to problems it
caused. Now you will get a prompt to compact after 100 OE closings, which
you should do, and don't touch anything until it has finished. If you
compact manually, at your convenience, this will also set the counter back
to zero. See this for more information:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

If you are fully patched, you will also now see a copy of your dbx files
being copied to the Recycle Bin as BAK files. Should something go awry
when
compacting, the messages can easily be restored from this backup. A manual
compact will also reset the counter in the registry back to zero now.

For more info, see the information outlined in red here:
www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#2
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Bill in Co. said:
Ooops. My bad. I just did the test and you're right, Bruce, so my
apologies.

I wonder if this is something new since SP2? I don't remember seeing
this behavior before, when I was using OE6 (before going to XP, SP2),
when
they removed that Autocompaction thing that I want back!!!

I DID test it (but evidently not very recently!!). Corrected.
Bruce Hagen wrote:
Bill. No it will not. Test it.

Make a note of the dbx file size of Deleted Items. Then empty Deleted
Items.
The size is the same, correct? Now compact the way you suggest and
check
the
size. Still the same, no? Compact manually as I suggested and the empty
Deleted Items.dbx file should now be 187KB. (An empty Deleted Items.dbx
file
size).
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


You can do the same thing the way I said, Bruce. "Tools, Options,
Clean
Up Now, Compact", and it compacts ALL folders (Mail and News).

Bruce Hagen wrote:
FYI. Clean Up Now /only/ compacts news folders, not OE local folders.

To compact /all/ folders:

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders
are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in
the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch
anything
until
the compacting is completed.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


If you close OE again, and then reopen OE again, does it still take
a
long
time (I mean with the newly created folders.dbx file?) If so, you
may
need to run compaction on the mail folders in OE (Maintenance, Clean
Up
Now, Compact), unless there is something wrong with that too.

Sirius wrote:
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in
case.
It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all
your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest in
another
identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do
this,
fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*. Open
OE
and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None
life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the
Inbox.
I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not
really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx
file
in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do
this).
Go
to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your
new
OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag the
file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store folder
in
the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click
Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder from
it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx
file
to
a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not
listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does,
see
if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but
no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the
normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items.
If
not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the
message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will reveal
the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the
location
down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and
paste
it
into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and
WAB)
are
by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in
Explorer,
you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start |
Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the
dbx
file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at the
top
of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the
*exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new
folder
and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows
Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to
the
OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx
files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store
folder
from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag
the
dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it even
help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
Correction:
One would have to force a value of 99 decimal into that counter (not 0).
Yeah, I saw your reply Bruce. I know the reason they removed it, but
for
me, I appreciated having it done automatically, and was always VERY
careful
to NOT be doing anything else after opening OE each time and waiting a
minute or two, before running any other programs.

Also, (and now I'm not so sure), I had thought that prior to this SP2
version I *was* able to reduce the deleted box folder size by simply
running
compact the way I mentioned., But again, this is BEFORE the SP2
addition,
when they added that Recycle Bin backup thing, and also removed the
autocompaction option.

If I could reset that OE compaction registry counter to "0" each time,
instead of "100", maybe that would accomplish the same goal (of each time
I
open OE, it would automatically run autocompaction for me).

Or if not "0" for the counter, maybe something MUCH lower, like 5 for the
counter. "100" (decimal) is WAY too excessive. But I think I read
somewhere that that counter was hard coded into OE, so, I guess I can't?

Hmmm. I suppose I could always try reinstalling an older version of OE6
(that didn't have that blasted SP2 update on it). That probably would
cause some other problems, though.

It's just that having to do this manually AND empty the Recycle Bin each
night or two is a drag (when it doesn't have to be). (I use OE a lot).

Bill


Bruce said:
You'll se a reply from me time stamped before this one, so now it is
moot.

Do you really want background compacting back? The #1 cause of losing
messages.

Why does OE insist on compacting folders when I close it?:
http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/why.htm#compact

About File Corruption:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/community/columns/filecorruption.mspx

Compacting your folders periodically is a must to keep OE functioning
well
and at some point, you may lose all your saved messages if you don't.
When
you delete, or move messages, the space they had used remains until you
compact.

***Never touch anything until the compacting is finished.***

See:
www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#2

With SP2, automatic background compacting was removed due to problems it
caused. Now you will get a prompt to compact after 100 OE closings, which
you should do, and don't touch anything until it has finished. If you
compact manually, at your convenience, this will also set the counter
back
to zero. See this for more information:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact

If you are fully patched, you will also now see a copy of your dbx files
being copied to the Recycle Bin as BAK files. Should something go awry
when
compacting, the messages can easily be restored from this backup. A
manual
compact will also reset the counter in the registry back to zero now.

For more info, see the information outlined in red here:
www.oehelp.com/OETips.aspx#2
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Bill in Co. said:
Ooops. My bad. I just did the test and you're right, Bruce, so my
apologies.

I wonder if this is something new since SP2? I don't remember seeing
this behavior before, when I was using OE6 (before going to XP, SP2),
when
they removed that Autocompaction thing that I want back!!!


Bill in Co. wrote:
I DID test it (but evidently not very recently!!). Corrected.

<snip my bad>


Bruce Hagen wrote:
Bill. No it will not. Test it.

Make a note of the dbx file size of Deleted Items. Then empty Deleted
Items.
The size is the same, correct? Now compact the way you suggest and
check
the
size. Still the same, no? Compact manually as I suggested and the
empty
Deleted Items.dbx file should now be 187KB. (An empty Deleted
Items.dbx
file
size).
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


You can do the same thing the way I said, Bruce. "Tools, Options,
Clean
Up Now, Compact", and it compacts ALL folders (Mail and News).

Bruce Hagen wrote:
FYI. Clean Up Now /only/ compacts news folders, not OE local
folders.

To compact /all/ folders:

Click on Outlook Express at the top of the folder tree so no folders
are
open. Then: File | Work Offline (or double click Working Online in
the
Status Bar). File | Folder | Compact all folders. Don't touch
anything
until
the compacting is completed.

Compact Your OE Folders:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm#compact
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


If you close OE again, and then reopen OE again, does it still take
a
long
time (I mean with the newly created folders.dbx file?) If so,
you
may
need to run compaction on the mail folders in OE (Maintenance,
Clean
Up
Now, Compact), unless there is something wrong with that too.

Sirius wrote:
Well, I did not delete it but moved it to another folder just in
case.
It
took a very long time for OE to open.
Then I see all the subfolders out of the inbox, so I guess
they are not subfolders any more, but local folders?



OK. I don't want you to lose anything, so make sure you have all
your
folders backed up. If the Inbox is in one identity and the rest
in
another
identity, that's good. If you need to create another ID to do
this,
fine.

Now, delete Folders.dbx in the old identity with OE *closed*.
Open
OE
and
see what you've got now.

There are some drawbacks to deleting Folders.dbx. None
life-threatening,
but read this so you are not surprised.

Consequences of deleting Folders.dbx:
http://www.insideoe.com/files/store.htm#deldbx
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


I can not import from the old identity because of the same
problem, the old inbox and subfolders don't show up in the
"import from" browse box.

I also did this with the main identity.
I renamed L:\Email L:\Emailold. Opened OE,it recreated the
L:\Email folder, I had an inbox with no messages.

I took inbox.dbx from Emailold and now I have messages in the
Inbox.
I
can not get past this point, and I guess the identity does not
really
matter.

Do not import Folders.dbx. Just the folders you need. Your new
identity
has its own Folders.dbx file.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Other moved inbox folders did not show up.
As soon I moved folders.dbx, the inbox disappears..
So I guess folders.dbx is corrupted.
How can I fix that? Thank you.

This is an oddity. In the old identity, is there an Inbox.dbx
file
in
the message store? If there is, drag it to the Desktop.

Open the new OE identity and then close OE. (You must do
this).
Go
to
Windows Explorer and locate the Message Store folder for your
new
OE
identity, but don't open it. Click on the Desktop and drag
the
file
from the Desktop in the right hand pane to the OE store
folder
in
the
left pane. Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click
Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store folder
from
it's
default location on drive C to another drive, drag the dbx
file
to
a
location on that drive and not the Desktop.

If that is successful, import the rest of the files to the
new
identity.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA




The new identity, called test, has an inbox.
Trying to import from the email folder, the inbox is not
listed
again, just the others. What does that mean.

Create a new identity. Does that have an Inbox? If it does,
see
if
it will "find" the messages in the old Inbox via importing.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Same thing, we have outbox, sent items, deleted items, but
no
inbox.




With OE closed.
Start, Run, msimn
What do you get?
--
Ronald Sommer

Hello,

I got the computer today.
The inbox is missing. However, when try to create one,
it tells me folder already exists.

Thank you.

[X-Posted to OE General]

IOW, complete folders are missing? L:\Email is not the
normal
location of the message store. Was it moved at one
time?

First, make sure the folders are not in Deleted Items.
If
not,
see if the dbx files for the folders still exist in the
message
store and manually restore it as follows.

Tools | Options | Maintenance | Store Folder will
reveal
the
location of your Outlook Express files. Write the
location
down
and navigate to it in Windows Explorer or, copy and
paste
it
into Start | Run.

In WinXP, Win2K & Win2K3, the OE user files (DBX and
WAB)
are
by
default marked as hidden. To view these files in
Explorer,
you
must enable Show Hidden Files and Folders under Start |
Control
Panel | Folder Options | View.

In the message store in Windows Explorer, click on the
dbx
file
for the missing folder and drag it to the Desktop at
the
top
of
the folder tree. Open OE and create a folder with the
*exact*
same name as the one on your Desktop. Open the new
folder
and
then close OE. (You must do this). Go back to Windows
Explorer
and Click Desktop and drag the file from the Desktop to
the
OE
store folder that you clicked on to reveal the .dbx
files.
Prompt - "Do you want to overwrite......."? Click Yes.

*Note* If you have moved the Outlook Express store
folder
from
it's default location on drive C to another drive, drag
the
dbx
file to a location on that drive and not the Desktop.
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP Outlook Express
Imperial Beach, CA


Hello,

On a friend's computer, after a virus scan with AVG,
and removing viruses, the Inbox created subfolders
got lost even though the settings point to the right
location,
L:\Email. Would this be a registry problem?
Is it possible to uninstall/reinstall OE? Would it
even
help?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sirius
 
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