Vista - I need help repairing a Live Mail folder structure . . .

I need help repairing a Live Mail folder structure . . .

Greetings guys,

A while back, I made a posting regarding these issues, but did not fully get
my situation resolved.

I am now willing to put in whatever time necessary to get the job done
right.

Bringing you up to speed on what has happed:
When I first downloaded Live Mail, it instantly set about importing all of
the mail from my then-current mail-client Outlook Express. I must say, I did
not like this. I felt that it was a rude way to go about doing things. Live
Mail should have announced its intentions and asked for approval *before*
undertaking such a significant step. - A simple welcome screen along with an
explanation of what was about to occur would have set my mind more at ease,
because, at the time, I was not sure what Live Mail was doing. Could it be
that it was moving my mail to an on-line server? I was not sure, and at that
point I may have canceled the Live Mail operation and checked to see if my
precious collection of Outlook .dbx files were still intact. Once satisfied
that only a copy was taking place, I then restarted Live Mail and let it
complete.
After that, I was somewhat please to see that Live Mail was simply a new
up-to-date mail handler. And I was delighted to learn that it no longer used
the .dbx (data base) files that Outlook Express before it had used. I liked
the Idea of manipulating (and especially archiving) individual messages of
my choice.

But problems soon developed:

I was especially alarmed by the fact that Live Mail had truncated many of my
folder names. I had a vast collection of mail folders with similar names,
and the move to Live Mail made it impossible to recognize exactly which
folder was which. It was irritating.

I decided to pay a visit to the mail collection as it existed in my profile:

C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail

And I started in moving and renaming Live Mail files and folders. (Yes, I
know. I have since learned that that was not a good idea.)
Now my problems really stared. On my last posting, I was told to enable file
compression each time Live Mail exited, and to leave it in that state for as
long as it took to fix things.
But, things are still not fixed, and this is more or less the state of my
Live Mail as it exists today.

I will detail some of the problems I am having:

1) When I move a mail message from my inbox to a folder for arching
purposes. I find that messages always go into the archiving folder but don't
always come out! If I view that same folder, sure enough, it appears to
contents all of the newly moved message. However, even though I can see the
listing, if I attempt to read (open) certain (maybe most?) messages I only
get an error message stating: "There was an error opening this message. An
error has occurred."

2) I use OneCare, and when it completes a backup of my computer files, it
informs me about files that could not be moved. Many of them reside inside
the Live Mail file system and I assume these are Mail messages with names
(or paths?) which are too long to work with OneCare backup.

3) It appears that Live Mail is "happy" with some folders, and "unhappy"
with others. But I find no easy way to ascertain which folders are which. I
question why Live Mail will allow me to put a message into a folder which it
is then unable to retrieve from later. (Just a thought: Perhaps, Live Mail
should mark all of its "official folders" with a special folder color or
shape (like the "shared", "sharing", or the "recycle bin" folders) this
would distinguish them from any inadvertent folders created "by hand" using
the File Explorer inside the local profile. (No, I won't make that same
mistake again).

4) I have difficulty understanding the reasoning behind all this. Why is it
that, if .dbx files are not used in Live Mail, that the Live Mail file
structure (as viewed from within Live Mail) is not "File Explorer friendly"?
Could it be that upon startup Live Mail should "look at" the file structure
as it actually appears on disk, and not just rely on some remembered version
of what it "thinks" the structure looks like based on how it was last left?
But as I said, I have difficulty in understanding the reasoning behind all
this. And I don't doubt that there may be some perfectly good reason for the
way Live Mail has been programmed. It would just make it easier for us users
if some of that reasoning could be shared.

I am seeking a systematic method for dealing with these issues.

Like all of you, my mail is important to me and my mail structure is now
approaching 12 GB in size and contains over 100,000 messages! I like to keep
it neat and tidy.
Yes, I do backups, but as pointed out above, One Care is not able to archive
everything. - However, I believe Windows XP Pro backup utility does backup
everything (even overly long file names) - and I use it too.

What is the proper way to get this Live Mail system under control?

Anyone?

Thanks,

- Stan Shankman

Which issue do you wish to address first ?

--
...winston
ms-mvp mail


"Stan Shankman" <stantheman@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:O1AWdNYCJHA.5316@xxxxxx

Hi Stan. You might want to have a cup of coffee while you read this long post. ;-)

If you changed the names of the folders in your Message Store, that would have caused all sorts of problems with your database as it tried to 'recover' from it, especially since you have so many messages. Your processor must have been working overtime.

I also suspect that, rather than create new folders under 'Storage folders' and moving your imported messages into them, you moved the actual folders, with their messages, out of the 'Imported items' folder and into 'Storage folders'. You may even have done this before WLMail was finished indexing your imported folders and messages - something WLMail (and your processor) would not at all have liked.

When importing a lot of messages, WLMail has a lot of indexing of the imported messages in the "Imported items" folder to do. I found that if the messages are then moved too soon (before the indexing is complete), things can go awry. Also, dragging folders from one storage folder into another storage folder is not a good idea due to the way the indexing works.

So what you need to do, is tidy up the Message Store somehow.

Whatever method you use will have your processor working overtime for some time with all the messages in your Message Store.

I could tell you how to force a full recovery of your database, but that might take days to complete in your case, since all your messages will be moved into subfolders of a folder called 'Recovered items' under 'Storage folders'.

However, I think it would be best for you if you controlled how many messages are moved/copied at a time.

Therefore, what I suggest you do is *replace* your Message Store, then import your messages into your new Message Store from your old Message Store.

To replace your Message Store, you first need to export your accounts, so that you can easily re-create them by importing them.

To do that, go Tools->Accounts...-> then select each e-mail and newsgroup account in turn and click the 'Export' button...

After exporting all your accounts, close WLMail and rename your Windows Live Mail Message Store folder^ to "Windows Live Mail (old)". When WLMail is next started, it will recreate the Message Store folder.

Then import your accounts into WLMail (Tools->Accounts...->Import [button]).

Note that any messages left on your e-mail provider's server may be re-downloaded again at this stage.

Now you can import your messages. Messages can be imported by using the File->Import->Messages...->Windows Live Mail option, and pointing it to your old renamed Message Store folder.

However, to avoid having to then move your imported messages out of the 'Imported items' folder, I suggest that you import your messages from your old renamed Message Store by *dragging* them onto the WLMail interface.

So you would create an aptly named folder under 'Storage folders' within WLMail, then open your old Message Store folder and find the messages you want to put into that folder. Then select all such messages and drag them into your created folder under 'Storage folders' in WLMail. The messages will be copied into the new folder once released onto the WLMail interface.

Continue to do this with all the messages you want to import into your new Message Store (don't forget your 'Sent items').

Remember that WLMail will have to index the imported messages, which will take some time and resources, so it may be best to stagger the importing of messages, and indeed only import a certain number of messages at a time (experiment for the right number) to avoid having WLMail *appear* to 'stop responding'.

Note: If any extra spellchecking languages have been installed, or you want to re-use your custom dictionary, then you can replace the contents of the "Proof" folder within the new Message Store with the contents of the "Proof" folder in your old Message Store.


^The database file "Mail.MSMessageStore" is found in WLMail's Storage Folder. This Storage Folder in its default location is a hidden folder, so ensure "Show hidden files and folders" is checked under Folder Options in Windows Explorer. To find the location of your message store, go to Tools->Options...->Advanced [tab]->Maintenance->Store Folder. The default locations are -

Vista: %localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail
(C:\Users\<Windows user account>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail)

XP: %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail
(C:\Documents and Settings\<windows user account>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail)

--
Cheers,
Peter
(Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 with Windows Live Mail 12.0.1606)
"There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Shakespeare
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"Stan Shankman" <stantheman@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:O1AWdNYCJHA.5316@xxxxxx