Transfer of OE to Windows Mail

[legality]

New computer just installed. Old computer was Windows XP and new one is
Windows Vista. Technician transferred my Outlook Express mail program to
Windows Mail, but there is information missing that is important to me. In OE
there were additional tabs for "personal" and "other" information for each
contact. I kept family info there such as birthdays, vacation home addresses
and phone numbers, etc.

All my OE folders, e-mail and basic contact info transferred successfully,
but the info for each contact contained in the "personal" and "other"
sections is nowhere to be found.

Can anyone help?

 

[Patrick Keenan]

New computer just installed. Old computer was Windows XP and new one is
Windows Vista. Technician transferred my Outlook Express mail program to
Windows Mail, but there is information missing that is important to me. In
OE
there were additional tabs for "personal" and "other" information for each
contact. I kept family info there such as birthdays, vacation home
addresses
and phone numbers, etc.

All my OE folders, e-mail and basic contact info transferred successfully,
but the info for each contact contained in the "personal" and "other"
sections is nowhere to be found.

Can anyone help?

None of that information was actually within OE itself. It was within the
Windows Address Book file, which exists independently of OE. It is also
held in another folder - which is, like most Microsoft mail stores, set to
be hidden.

If you open Windows Address Book and go to Help, About, the file location
will be displayed.

Go back to your old system and collect all the *.WAB files, save them to CD
and copy them to your new system (files like this often cannot be opened
from read-only media, but should be backed up).

You may need to re-import, paying attention to field mappings. And you'll
want to watch for what happens with duplicates.

Also, not all address books are the same, so fields used in one are not
necessarily present in another. You may even find that Windows Mail isn't
appropriate for your contact management needs, and that you have to move to
something else. The original WAB files will be essential to this.

HTH
-pk