Need to recover old e-mail from outlook (or outlook express?)

My old computer died. I got a new one. In the process, I changed from some
flavor of Outlook (I think Express) to Live Mail. I had a disk back-up, so I
was able to recover the .pst file from Outlook.

How do I get at my old e-mails from the old machine?

Thank you to anyone who can help!

 

Outlook Express and the Office Outlook are very different program with
different file formats.

If you found a PST file that would be from the Office Outlook.

Outlook Express (OE) uses DBX files, one per OE folder. So if you were
really using Outlook Express, you found the wrong files.

In the case of Office Outlook, you'll need to install it on your current
PC, get the PST file working in it and then do a File, Import, Messages.

 

I thought that you could import to a pst file to Windows Mail, then to
Windows Live Mail.

 

The pst files won't import directly into Windows Mail except on machines
that have a suitable version of Office Outlook installed; Windows Mail
needs to use part of Office Outlook in order to be able to extract
messages from the pst files.

Robert Miles

 

To add to robert's input..
It's my understanding that WM needs to be able to identify the name of the Profile in an installed version of Outlook. Since
Outlook controls the pst in use(the default is Outlook.pst), the application needs to be present for another email client to find
it.

For the op...
Install the same version of Outlook(Office) or the trial version would be acceptable.
Open Outlook(it will create a profile named Outlook.pst), agree to any prompts to setup a profile, accept all defaults.
Use Outlook to determine the location of the new pst file(navigate in Explorer to validate the ability to find the folder and file.
The just created Outlook.pst file will have a current date).
Close Outlook(important)
Navigate to the Outlook.pst file, then rename it OutlookPst.old
Copy the older(backed up pst file)to the same folder, rename the file to Outlook.pst if named differently)
Open Outlook and allow it to build whatever folders etc.
Close Outlook

Now WLM or WM can import any content(depending upon the size of the original pst file and the number of messags, folders, email
accounts etc..it may take some time for WLM to index the lot..be patient)

 

Based I the responses here, I resolved my problem by finding another machine
(my computer at work) which had Outlook on it, importing the .pst file there,
and then mailing everything back to my new home machine.

Thank you to everyone who helped!

 

That's another way. Thanks for reporting back.

 

I'm having the same problem! It's so frustrating...any tips would be
appreciated. Thanks, D.

 

You need to explain YOUR problem in detail.

Are you trying to recover mail from Outlook Express or the Office
Outlook? The programs are very different with different file formats.

Have you found the data files from the old program?

What have you tried and what goes wrong? Any error messages?

 

Thanks for the response! My problem is this: our Outlook Express was on
a PC that was running Windows 98. We recently got a new computer that
runs Windows Mail on x64 Vista. We've plugged the old hard drive into
the new computer as drive E, and we've managed to import the contact
list/address book from OE into WinMail, but I can't find the folder
where OE was storing messages to import them. Nor can I open the OE
application itself, because I get an error message saying I might damage
the system if I try to do so. So I'm stuck.

 

If you are running Vista, you can't run Outlook Express.

You wan to do a search for *.DBX files. These are typically marked as
hidden system files. You you may need to use advanced search options.

Note that Windows Live Mail (WLM) and the Vista Windows Mail (WM) are
different programs. WM comes with Vista. WLM has to be download and
installed on Windows XP or Vista.

For help with the Vista Windows Mail (WM) program, use this Newsgroup:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.windows.vista.mail

You can also get to the newsgroup via this web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx
There select Windows Vista, then Windows Mail.

Backing up Windows Mail and importing from Outlook Express to Windows
Mail
http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx
Import messages into Windows Mail from Outlook Express:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com:80/Windows/en-US/Help/53e5df86-5ffb-43cf-a0c8-164e3fe7994f1033.mspx