Preserving my email in Windows Live Mail

[LesD]

Does anyone know how to preserve my email messages that I currently have in Windows Live Mail so that I can put them back after a Format and reinstall of Vista in my C: partition?

I have over a GB of stuff and I tried moving the Message Store from the C: partition to the D: partition but the result was less that satisfactory in fact it left my Storage Folders in a bit of a mess. Fortunately I could reattach to the original store on C: and recover the situation but I am no nearer knowing how to save these messages so that I can restore them after the OS and WLM is reinstalled.

I have obtained a  Gigabyte S-Series GA-EP45-DS3 Mobo (ICH10) to replace my relatively new GA-EP35-DS3 Mobo (ICH9) that has given me grief with its ICH9 USB ports. I even added a 4 port USB PCI card with a VIA controller on it as a workround but although it sorted out the major issue with my HP C5280 All-In_One there have been other issues that have irked me. The EP45 I am assured is the answer.

This all means that yet another install of my Vista Home Premium OS is in the offing that is if Bill G. will let me do it again! This will be about the third time so 

[Simon]

Does this help, Les?

http://liveunplugged.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!F92775FC46A390CA!174.entry

[Dopamine]

I'm an XP/Outlook Express user, not Vista/WLM, but I think the process is the same.

All I do is make a copy of the message store folder, reformat, copy the saved message store folder back to its original location. Have never had a problem or loss doing it this way.

[LesD]

I'm an XP/Outlook Express user, not Vista/WLM, but I think the process is the same.

All I do is make a copy of the message store folder, reformat, copy the saved message store folder back to its original location. Have never had a problem or loss doing it this way.

Yes thanks for that Dopamine. I have done this for Outlook Express myself in the past and it has been OK but when I did it with OE it was in XP like you are and it did work OK like this for me too. I have tried a straight copy of the Message Store from C: to D: with that excuse of a Vista Explorer thingy and everything looks the same on D: as it is on C: but when I point WLM at it despite seeing the messages listed in the mailboxes when I click on one I am informed that the message is not found!

I do wondered if it is an ownership issue along the lines that is has lost the user's identity in the straight copy process. Vista does seem to me to be overly burdened with this sort of thing!

Using the move Message Store location under Tools - Options - Advanced - Maintenance - Store does seem to show the messages but there is a lot a duplication of folder names some of which are empty and others that appear to be OK - a mess as I said before, one that would be time consuming and tricky to sort out from what I have seen.

Does this help, Les?

http://liveunplugged.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!F92775FC46A390CA!174.entry

Well there is another method here Simon so I may well give it a try. I am just a wee bit worried that if it doesn't work or if I do it wrong I will loose the lot!

Thanks for the link though it is definitety worth having.

[Dopamine]

Does Vista have multiple user facility like XP does?

When in doubt about something, I often create a new user and copy or export files to the new account to check if it works. Could you create a new user in Vista, copy your message store to the new user's message store, open WLM and see if the new user has your saved messages? That would at least put your mind at rest that the copied store was intact and nothing lost.

[Rik]

An alternative approach, Les, might be to use something like the free version of Mailstore:

http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-server.aspx

[Sebby]

Les, I believe you can do File > Export > Messages and then an import once you've formatted with WLM.