I gather that you upgraded from WLM version 12x to the latest version 14x, and your 'Default' Contacts (contacts accrued when not signed in to Windows Live in WLMail) failed to import to the new version.
First to understand (to a degree) why this happened.
Version 14x of WLMail uses a different storage mechanism and location for WLMail's Contacts. The new method stores them within a database (outside of WLMail's Message Store), so they are not accessible outside of WLMail. However, the old method stored them as individual files.
Sadly, the transfer of the old Contact's Store to the new one has been known to fail (rarely) or else not display in the current version of WLMail (14.0.8064.0206). We are uncertain of why this occurs, but my first suspect is interference by an Antivirus program during the upgrade.
Now, your old Default Contacts should still be in place in WLMail's Message Store* in a sub-folder called 'Default' in a folder called 'Contacts'. There you will find your individual contact files with a .contact file extension (back up this Contact Store now).
In XP you won't be able to open these files, or import them into WLMail 14x, since they are opened by Windows Contacts in Vista. However, you can read some of the information in a .contact file by opening it with a text editor such as NotePad.
If you follow Noel's advice and uninstall the current version of WLEssentials and reinstall WLMail 12x, you should find your old contacts back in WLMail. You can then export them for later importing if necessary after upgrading to WLMail 14x (or 15x if you wait another month or two, or three).
Otherwise, if you used Outlook Express before converting to WLMail, your OE Contacts will still be in Windows Address Book, and you can import them into your current version of WLMail.
--
Cheers,
Peter.R
(Windows Vista Home Premium SP2 with IE7 & Windows Live Mail 2009 14.0.8064.0206)
"There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Shakespeare
"jyc1958" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message news:7f0a2012cdc2bc91dd1f0882213bee86@xxxxxx-gateway.com...
Quote:
>
> Hi,
> Thanks to those who replied to my message. I was using WLM (never
> sign-in to Hotmail or MSN) in Win XP. I was not able to back-up
> anything. Upgrade was done when I received a pop-up message that a new
> and ugraded version available.
> As of this email I still can't get back all my contacts.
> Regards,
> --
> jyc1958