Help with error message from importing from OE to Outlook

[Apota]

I have a Windows XP Home hard drive with emails and contacts from Outlook
Express. I need to get them into Outlook 2003 on a Windows Vista Home
Premium computer. I copied over the email files and address book file over
the the Vista hard drive. When I try to import them into Outlook I get the
following error message, "The mail folder could not be opened. If another
application is using this file, please close it and try again." There are no
other applications running. I just start Vista and then start Outlook. I
had no problem importing both the emails and the address book into Vista
Mail. It looks like only Outlook 2007 supports importing from Vista Mail.
It's supposed to import from Outlook Express though. I can't export from
Outlook Express because I can no longer boot from that old hard drive. I
don't want to use Vista mail, and I want to use Outlook instead. Thanks for
your help and time...

 

[Roady [MVP]]

You'll first have to configure your OE files with Windows Mail. From there
use Export from within WM to transfer them to Outlook.

 

[Apota]

What do you mean I have to configure my OE files with WM? I have imported
them into WM already. I then exported them from WM into a WM format, but
Outlook 2003 doesn't recognize WM files only Outlook 2007 does. So, that's
where I'm stuck at. How come I can import the OE files into WM and not
Outlook 2003? So, I either have to figure out how to import the OE files
into Outlook 2003 which I tried and I get the above error message or export
the WM emails into Outlook 2003. Thanks for the help!

 

[Roady [MVP]]

That's what I said; once you've configured your OE files with WM use Export
from within WM. Don't choose to Export to a file but directly to Outlook. If
Outlook isn't listed choose Microsoft Exchange instead.

 

[Apota]

Thanks, that worked! I just need to know where Outlook 2003 keeps the
mailbox data files in Vista so I can do backups on them. Thanks again for
all the help!

 

[Roady [MVP]]

You're welcome!

File-> Data File Management will reveal the location of the pst-file.

 

[Apota]

What's the PST file? You mean it's not like Outlook Express where there are
seperate files for each mailbox like inbox.dbx outbox.dbx sent.dbx, etc.?
How does Outlook work with storing email messages?

 

[Roady [MVP]]

The pst-file is the data file where Outlook stores all its data. Outlook
indeed uses only a single file for this.
See http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/aboutpst.htm