IMPORT FROM WM TO WLM

I had a very large message store in Windows Mail with many many folders and
sub-folders. When I imported into WLM, a number of errors occurred and I
seek guidance on how to fix these. The first 3 also happened when I
imported into WMail from OE, but did not happen when I previously imported
from OE to OE.

1. Many folder names are corrupted. There seems to be a WLM limit of 15
characters in folder names that affects imported folders but not the
creation of new folders. For example, on import, "AA-OpenOffice users" was
changed to "AA-OpenOffi 636", although I've had no trouble renaming that
folder or creating new folders with names that exceed 15 characters. Why
does this problem occur with WLM?

2. A second type of folder name corruption is when the folder name contains
the character "/". The slash and all characters preceding it are lost on
import. Thus the folder name "MICE/RATS" became "RATS". Once again, WLM
will accept a folder name change to "MICE/RATS", so why will it not do the
import correctly?

3. All imported folders and their messages are put into a new folder called
"Imported Folders" or similar. It is then necessary to go through the
tedious process of moving the imported folders to the correct places and
deleting the empty "Imported Folders" folders. Why does WLM do it this way?
OE to OE imports were much easier in that the existing folder names were
simply moved over.

4. In many folders, not all messages were imported. Should I do the import
again for those folders or what?

I'm using Vista Home Premium. With all these problems (and many more) with
WM and WLM, I'm at an absolute loss to understand why Microsoft would put
these products on the market and force people to use them (by making OE no
longer available under Vista) when there are so many bugs or unresolved
issues or disadvantages relative to OE. Sorry for the rant, but I'm getting
heartily sick of the tremendous waste of my time and energy in making a
change that one would and should expect to be seamless.

Lindsay Graham
Canberra, Australia

It's a mess indeed. Think about what happened here after doing the import
more than once..:-(.

What you can do (a lot of work, but it solves the import/import/import
folder mess .. a bit..):
Create the folder you need in WLM.
Close (not needed I think, but for playing safely) WLM
Drag the messages from the WM folder (if you can detect the correct folder
name.. which could be a problem .. I know..) and
drag them into the WLM folder.
It can take a while before the messages do show up in the folder in WM (or
WLM), but it's how I did it and it worked.. but took a lot of time since I
have many folders and ~ 600,000 messages or so stored).

HtH

--
Have a nice day!
Leen
For free tools and information to burn an iso file to CD , DVD , HD DVD ,
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http://iso.snoekonline.com/iso.htm (updated 3/11/2008)



"Lindsay Graham" <LDGraham@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:OQf%23CrBiIHA.4344@xxxxxx

Lindsay, please don't keep telling us about things that are different in
this application from what they were in Outlook Express. That's like saying,
"Why doesn't my automatic Ford Fiesta have a gear lever like my Morris Minor
had?" This is a free program that many of us have grown to like a lot. Sure,
you may have to learn a few new ways of doing things, but it is (not yet, at
any rate) a replacement for Outlook Express or Windows Mail. Just another
offering. I've commented on your points inline...

"Lindsay Graham" <LDGraham@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:OQf#CrBiIHA.4344@xxxxxx There is no "corruption" and this is not a "problem", just the way this app
deals with folder names. As you have discovered, you can call your folders
what you like in the UI. Their names in the file system need not concern
you.
The slash "/" has, along with < > : " \ | ? * , a particular meaning in the
Windows file system, so you should not use it in the name of a file or a
folder. See
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365247.aspx
I don't know WM, so can't help you there. Just beware that if you delete a
Storage folder, you will probably break your Quick views. This is one of the
few bugs in the RTM version of WLMail, and it will most probably be fixed in
the first patch. If it happens, please search for the solution which has
been posted many times in this forum.
Sounds like a good idea, but again, I don't know WM.
Who's forcing you? There are plenty of other mail clients out there, many of
them free like WLMail.
--
Noel

Noel, I appreciate your very informative response. However, let's be clear
on two things. I'm not complaining that WLM is *different* from OE, I'm
complaining that WLM has many negative features (or corruptions or bugs or
problems, call them what you will) that OE did not have. Vista users who
would otherwise have happily continued to use OE have been *forced* by
Microsoft to use WM or WML, but you say that "it is (not yet, at any rate) a
replacement for Outlook Express". That's an amazing indictment of
Microsoft -- it takes away OE, and replaces it with an inferior product and
expects us not to react! Sure there are other offerings, but do you really
think that Microsoft wants to lose customers to non-Microsoft email
programs??!!

See also my interleaved comments below.

Lindsay Graham

"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:u#u9EpFiIHA.5160@xxxxxx What do you mean "Their names in the file system need not concern you."?
I'm talking about the folder names in WLM as imported by WLM from OE or WM.
The folder names have been corrupted and surely that is a very real problem.
I have to go through and fix every one of these corruptions manually in WLM.
Has no-one else had this problem?
Thanks for the reference to file naming conventions, but that just seems to
make the situation worse. The reference says that the characters listed
above may not be used in file names and, as one would expect, the system
will reject any attempt to include one of those characters in a file name.
That's fine, but there is nothing that I can see that says that the file
naming convention applies to OE or WLM folder names. The fact that OE and
WLM will both accept these characters in folder names is, to me, a clear
indication that it is legitimate to do so. If they should not be used in
folder names, why does Microsoft not say so very clearly and prominently
and, better still, prevent their use in folder names as happens with file
names? I am talking about WLM, not WM. Surely you are not suggesting that WLM
creates special folder names and then expects you to use them in preference
to those that the user has created? Once again, this is not just a
difference, it is a significant change that has a real disadvantage for the
user and no advantages that I can see. I'm not yet using Quick View, so
that is not a concern at the moment.
Once again, the problem appears to be with WML (the importing program), not
WM, and that's why I asked on this newsgroup.. Given that some (but not
all) messages were imported, it will clearly be a major hassle to import
again and then have to manually check for duplicate messages and assess (for
each of 1,000 or so folders) whether I've now got all messages. I hate to
say it again, but why is Microsoft promoting this product and forcing Vista
customers to use it when it is clearly deficient?
Microsoft is, as I've explained above.

Inline..
Note: Vista Ultimate is my o/s
--
...winston
ms-mvp windows live mail


"Lindsay Graham" <LDGraham@xxxxxx> wrote in message > Not yet on similar nested folders.
WLM's design intent of using different folder/subfolders for each email account places the import in the 'Imported folder' to
protect that integrity thereby preventing a user importing more than one account and folders/subfolders and inevitably mixing
messages among accounts and creating a much larger problem. Unlike OE which uses on common folder structure for all mail accounts,
it is incumbent upon the user to create your own folders under each account, once setup, drag the contents of the appropriate folder
under 'imported folders' to the user created folder in the correct account.
No one is forcing one to use any product. Its free. Quite a few non Msft third party applications are compatible with Vista. On the
other hand most would agree that if one is dealing with '1000 of messages or so folders' corruption in OE would be inevitable(few
would disagree based on OE's dbx corruption history) just as it would be in WLM and WM thus a more capable [not free] client like
Outlook(which many of us also use and prefer for similar capacity constraints) might be in order. If the account(s) in question is
used for business or commercial instead of personal all the more reason to use fee type system to take advantage of phone based
technical support when program or user issues arise.
As explained above..no one is forcing your to use any 'free' product...the decision to choose what you use is ultimately yours, not
ours or Microsoft's.


And by the way...the advice on copying the OE message store to import into WLM was sound. If switching from OE to WLM, then future
imports would be predominantly importing WLM exported messages from the network(assuming regular backups were made, especially when
dealing with 1000 or messages or so folders, and would be the norm)

Importing from the network works quite fine for properly shared network folders...e.g. Messages, Contacts, Email Accounts, and
Newsgroup Accounts(see attached WLM import screen).