Windows Vista Forums

Users with LARGE OE mail folders
  1. #1


    guysonit Guest

    Users with LARGE OE mail folders

    Does anyone have experience (positive or negative) migrating a user
    from Outlook Express to WLMD with a myriad of LARGE outlook express
    folders?



    What is the migration process? How long would I expect it to take if
    the user has 5000+ messages in his store (Pack rat I know, but not an
    option to delete.)

    Any reccomended steps (aside from backing up the store folder :-) ) to
    tackling such an issue. I don't even want to approach this until I get
    some idea of what to expect.

      My System SpecsSystem Spec

  2. #2


    R. C. White Guest

    Re: Users with LARGE OE mail folders

    Hi, guysonit.

    First, please lose the "D" in WLMD. That was retired last May - although MS
    still hasn't got around to deleting it from the name of this newsgroup.
    Whenever I see WLMD these days, my mind immediately asks whether it was a
    typo, or if the poster really is that far behind. ;^{

    The migration process is pretty straightforward - and almost simple and
    intuitive. Just download WLM and install it. If it doesn't detect and
    import your OE message store automatically, then use File | Import |
    Messages | OE6 and Browse to your folder. Then DON'T click All Folders
    because there's no point in Importing your newsgroup messages; you'll have
    to download those again later, anyhow. You probably don't want Deleted
    Items either and maybe some other folders, but that's up to you.

    One fly in the ointment, especially if you are migrating to Vista, is that
    WLM will not be able to even SEE your OE store folder until you give
    yourself permission. Until then, it will simply tell you that there are no
    such files there. If you hit this roadblock and need help, post back.

    The Import process did take a long time for me; I probably have at least as
    many messages as you. OE stores all the messages for a single folder
    (Family, for example) in a single .dbx file (Family.dbx), along with an
    index file called Folders.dbx. WLM (and WM) stores each message as an
    individual .eml file. So if you have 1,000 messages from Mom in Family.dbx,
    WLM will store each one in a separate file with a computer-generated name
    like 74F55013-00000001.eml, which gives no clue as to the content or sender
    of the mail. There's a lot of overhead involved in extracting all those
    separate files and storing them individually, so it might take hours to
    Import them all. But it's a one-time procedure. After that, you get the
    payoff. A single bad byte can destroy a large .dbx file, costing all the
    messages in that OE folder; in WLM, only the one message might be lost.

    If you are a belt AND suspenders kind of guy, you can run OE and WLM
    side-by-side indefinitely, each with its own message store. You can even
    set both programs to "Leave a copy of the message on the server" for several
    days. I have WM and WLM each leave a copy for 14 days so that both stores
    will be complete so long as I run each program at least once every couple of
    weeks and collect my mail. All except Sent Items, that is. Neither program
    knows about mail I send from the other, so I have to preserve that folder in
    each of them.

    RC
    --
    R. C. White, CPA
    San Marcos, TX
    rc@xxxxxx
    Microsoft Windows MVP
    (Running Windows Live Mail 2008 in Vista Ultimate x64)

    "guysonit" <bill.kunkel@xxxxxx> wrote in message
    news:02396f8c-5327-455f-889b-63c04009a427@xxxxxx

    > Does anyone have experience (positive or negative) migrating a user
    > from Outlook Express to WLMD with a myriad of LARGE outlook express
    > folders?
    >
    > What is the migration process? How long would I expect it to take if
    > the user has 5000+ messages in his store (Pack rat I know, but not an
    > option to delete.)
    >
    > Any reccomended steps (aside from backing up the store folder :-) ) to
    > tackling such an issue. I don't even want to approach this until I get
    > some idea of what to expect.

      My System SpecsSystem Spec

  3. #3


    ric Guest

    Re: Users with LARGE OE mail folders

    A little late perhaps for your needs, but I thought this could help others
    that may need to know.

    I installed WLM last weekend and it automatically converted all of my
    accounts and brought over my message store in a little over 2 hours. This
    included 10 POP3 and 4 Hotmail email accounts, with 190 folders and almost
    265,000 messages.

    I'm running WinXP sp2 on a 1.7GHz Pentium w/2GB ram and plenty of disk
    space.

    The only problem I had with the install was it failed at first and required
    I download a patch, since I was using Office 2003. Sorry, I don't have the
    link to the patch, but I just googled for Windows Live Mail install failure
    and found it.

    I half expected to have a problem with this large message store, but it
    worked fine and everything appears to be intact.
    --

    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    ric

    "guysonit" <bill.kunkel@xxxxxx> wrote in message
    news:02396f8c-5327-455f-889b-63c04009a427@xxxxxx

    > Does anyone have experience (positive or negative) migrating a user
    > from Outlook Express to WLMD with a myriad of LARGE outlook express
    > folders?
    >
    > What is the migration process? How long would I expect it to take if
    > the user has 5000+ messages in his store (Pack rat I know, but not an
    > option to delete.)
    >
    > Any reccomended steps (aside from backing up the store folder :-) ) to
    > tackling such an issue. I don't even want to approach this until I get
    > some idea of what to expect.


      My System SpecsSystem Spec

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