hijacked address book

This morning, I began getting notices of undeliverable mail which I had not
sent. Friends began complaining that I was sending them spam.
When trying to use my contact list to warn others, I found that most of my
contacts had been deleted - particularly those that had received the spam.

On my XP Home SP3 machine, I'm using WLM V2009 (build 14.0.8089.0726) and
about half of my contacts are gone.
On my Vista Home machine, using WLM V2008 (build 12.0.1606), the contacts
list is totaly empty.

Is there any way of restoring my contacts list?

I notice that this same problem is being reported over on the Windows Live
(Hotmail) forum - since moved over to Managing Spam forum.
I have a recent Acronis Image of my C drive - does anyone know if I can
restore my address book from that Image? and what files to restore?
I'm so confused about Where these Contact Lists are stored.... my local
drive or at MSN or Hotmail or....
If I restore from my image to my hard drive will it sync back to the remote
Contacts file or will the empty remote file sync back to my local drive and
wipe it out again?
Oh for the good ol' days of Outlook Express.
===========

"dim jim" wrote:

> This morning, I began getting notices of undeliverable mail which I had not
> sent. Friends began complaining that I was sending them spam.
> When trying to use my contact list to warn others, I found that most of my
> contacts had been deleted - particularly those that had received the spam.
>
> On my XP Home SP3 machine, I'm using WLM V2009 (build 14.0.8089.0726) and
> about half of my contacts are gone.
> On my Vista Home machine, using WLM V2008 (build 12.0.1606), the contacts
> list is totaly empty.
>
> Is there any way of restoring my contacts list?
>

On my Windows 7 32 bit machine

C:\Users\Walraven\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Contacts\<login
id>\real

is where windows live mail has its contacts. It may of course vary on your
machine, but a good place to start.

Michael


"dim jim" <> wrote in message
news:1AD3E1A7-B758-4E7C-849F-...
> I notice that this same problem is being reported over on the Windows Live
> (Hotmail) forum - since moved over to Managing Spam forum.
> I have a recent Acronis Image of my C drive - does anyone know if I can
> restore my address book from that Image? and what files to restore?
> I'm so confused about Where these Contact Lists are stored.... my local
> drive or at MSN or Hotmail or....
> If I restore from my image to my hard drive will it sync back to the
> remote
> Contacts file or will the empty remote file sync back to my local drive
> and
> wipe it out again?
> Oh for the good ol' days of Outlook Express.
> ===========
>
> "dim jim" wrote:
>
>> This morning, I began getting notices of undeliverable mail which I had
>> not
>> sent. Friends began complaining that I was sending them spam.
>> When trying to use my contact list to warn others, I found that most of
>> my
>> contacts had been deleted - particularly those that had received the
>> spam.
>>
>> On my XP Home SP3 machine, I'm using WLM V2009 (build 14.0.8089.0726) and
>> about half of my contacts are gone.
>> On my Vista Home machine, using WLM V2008 (build 12.0.1606), the contacts
>> list is totaly empty.
>>
>> Is there any way of restoring my contacts list?
>>

Thanks for trying Michael, but just not enough info for a dim jim. Guess
I'll just try to start over.....

"Michael Walraven" wrote:

> On my Windows 7 32 bit machine
>
> C:\Users\Walraven\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Contacts\<login
> id>\real
>
> is where windows live mail has its contacts. It may of course vary on your
> machine, but a good place to start.
>
> Michael
>
>
> "dim jim" <> wrote in message
> news:1AD3E1A7-B758-4E7C-849F-...
> > I notice that this same problem is being reported over on the Windows Live
> > (Hotmail) forum - since moved over to Managing Spam forum.
> > I have a recent Acronis Image of my C drive - does anyone know if I can
> > restore my address book from that Image? and what files to restore?
> > I'm so confused about Where these Contact Lists are stored.... my local
> > drive or at MSN or Hotmail or....
> > If I restore from my image to my hard drive will it sync back to the
> > remote
> > Contacts file or will the empty remote file sync back to my local drive
> > and
> > wipe it out again?
> > Oh for the good ol' days of Outlook Express.
> > ===========
> >
> > "dim jim" wrote:
> >
> >> This morning, I began getting notices of undeliverable mail which I had
> >> not
> >> sent. Friends began complaining that I was sending them spam.
> >> When trying to use my contact list to warn others, I found that most of
> >> my
> >> contacts had been deleted - particularly those that had received the
> >> spam.
> >>
> >> On my XP Home SP3 machine, I'm using WLM V2009 (build 14.0.8089.0726) and
> >> about half of my contacts are gone.
> >> On my Vista Home machine, using WLM V2008 (build 12.0.1606), the contacts
> >> list is totaly empty.
> >>
> >> Is there any way of restoring my contacts list?
> >>