Windows "Help"

[mart]

And you thought Military Intelligence was a contradiction.

I've followed the instructions in Outlook Express about compacting and backing up my email files. Great, very simple but htf do I re-open them. I know they are .dbx but nowhere can I find any Help that tells me how to re-access them.
I hope one of you techies has come across this and can help.

Mart

[Deuce Bigolo]

This tutorial might help



You'll probably have to copy ans paste it

I have no idea wether it relates to your specific operating system
whatever that might be

cheers
B....OZ

[mart]

Thanks Deuce, I've tried what it says but it doesn't work. I have found a download programme that does it but I'm buggered if I'm going to fork out for something that MS ought to be able to do. It's one of the most ridiculous things I've come across, the instructions being on "Help" on how to compact and backup messages but nothing there that tells you how to reverse the process.

Mart

[bfu]

the joy of 'mr gates world'

when are we all going to learn and buy a mac

i know i will next time

[Deuce Bigolo]

Very helpful bfu.....of course you never have any problems with a Mac..RIGHT!!!!!

As i don't use outlook express Mart maybe

might be worth a try

Its meant to be microsoft support in plain english and then some

cheers
B....OZ

[mart]

After a lot of searching I eventually found freeware solution that sorted the problem. See my next post on potential problems inherent in that.
But it wasn't easy.

Mart

[Deuce Bigolo]

It never is

Thats why you always have a way of reversing what you've done before you do it

Easy said in hindsight

I've got a program called config safe on windows 2nd edition 98 but i'm not to bothered

If it fails I just crash and start again

Why not just print your emails off that you want to keep?

cheers
B.....OZ

[european]

Which version of Outlook Express? Different in each. For OE5:

File- Import- Messages- "Microsoft Outlook Express 5"- then select "Import mail from OE5 store directory", then click the Browse button and select the folder containing the .dbx files.

The .dbx files themselves can be opened within Wordpad or Word to get an idea of what they contain.

*** Note that .dbx files are hidden in Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

[mart]

That's all very well european but I had 2 problems.
Having read the OE Help, I followed the instructions on Compacting and Saving then later discovered there weren't any instructions in Help about reversing the process. I left things as they were for ages and only recently wanted to retrieve some of the old messages.
After searching for a while I found the same instructions as yours but it didn't work, somehow the files had got corrupted. So I then had to search for some freeware which did the trick.

Thanks

Mart