Moving from Windows Mail - and compressing/archiving?

[EasyPC-not]

Hi, I used Outlook Express for many years for email. About 18 months ago, I
moved over to Windows Mail (as a first stage before moving to Outlook).
However, whenever I then tried to move my old emails from Windows Mail into
Outlook (I should point out that I need to keep all of my email messages -
going back about 9 or 10 years - so there are a lot of emails and a lot of
folders) I recall there was a problem in that the number of messages or
amount of data was too large... so I gave up and used Windows Mail instead.

I've now got a new PC and really want to move over to Outlook. What do I
need to do - should I transfer everything across from my old PC into Windows
Mail on the new PC first... and then try moving the email messages into
Outlook? I need ready access to all emails from the past 2 years
approximately... and I still need to retain older emails (2 to 10 year old
emails) and be able to use search facilities in order to find an old email
(perhaps searching based on some text within the email message).

I also seem to remember having a problem when - as an experiment - I tried
moving a small number of emails from Windows Mail to Outlook... as the date
of all messages was reset to the date that I transfered them from Windows
Mail into Outlook. This made my attempts to retain sensible records of all
emails useless. So, again, a reason why I gave up and stayed with Windows
Mail.

Thanks for your help.

 

[M]

Hi, I used Outlook Express for many years for email. About 18 months ago, I
moved over to Windows Mail (as a first stage before moving to Outlook).
However, whenever I then tried to move my old emails from Windows Mail into
Outlook (I should point out that I need to keep all of my email messages -
going back about 9 or 10 years - so there are a lot of emails and a lot of
folders) I recall there was a problem in that the number of messages or
amount of data was too large... so I gave up and used Windows Mail instead.

I've now got a new PC and really want to move over to Outlook. What do I
need to do - should I transfer everything across from my old PC into Windows
Mail on the new PC first... and then try moving the email messages into
Outlook? I need ready access to all emails from the past 2 years
approximately... and I still need to retain older emails (2 to 10 year old
emails) and be able to use search facilities in order to find an old email
(perhaps searching based on some text within the email message).

I also seem to remember having a problem when - as an experiment - I tried
moving a small number of emails from Windows Mail to Outlook... as the date
of all messages was reset to the date that I transfered them from Windows
Mail into Outlook. This made my attempts to retain sensible records of all
emails useless. So, again, a reason why I gave up and stayed with Windows
Mail.

Thanks for your help.

On the old computer, use Windows Mail to *export* to Outlook
(File/Export). Then, copy Outlook's .pst file to a pen drive and move it
to your new computer in its own folder on your D drive. Then go to the
Control Panel and double click on Mail and disconnect the .pst file from
Outlook. Open Outlook and it will complain about not having a .pst file.
Browse to where you saved the .pst file you copied from the old
computer. Done.

M

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

While this has always worked in the past, there is a modification that is
recommended because Outlook 2007 has become so fussy when connecting to PST
files. Rather than disconnecting the PST from the profile in Control Panel
and letting Outlook throw an error on relaunch, it's better to connect the
PST file directly within Outlook, set it as the default, then disconnect the
other PST file after restarting Outlook.

 

[M]

While this has always worked in the past, there is a modification that
is recommended because Outlook 2007 has become so fussy when connecting
to PST files. Rather than disconnecting the PST from the profile in
Control Panel and letting Outlook throw an error on relaunch, it's
better to connect the PST file directly within Outlook, set it as the
default, then disconnect the other PST file after restarting Outlook.

Well, isn't that special.

M