So you’ve got a shiny new pc and have transferred all your documents and photos, but how do you move your Outlook Express emails over to Windows 7 without too much pain?

Answer – with difficulty! But it’s not impossible.

Outlook express, the bundled email software that came with all previous versions of windows is not available in Windows 7 – it has been replaced by Windows Live Mail (in my opinion a very inferior replacement). The obvious alternative is Outlook but you cannot transfer your OE .dbx files to the new machine and then directly import into Outlook, some conversion needs to take place.

The options are:

  1. Import into Windows Live Mail and then onto Outlook (or just use WLM)
  2. Transfer into Outlook on old machine first then copy Outlook pst to new machine

The second option is arguably the easiest – install Outlook on the old pc (a trial version will do for this purpose). Run the programme and let it import all your settings and messages from Outlook Express. Copy the resulting outlook.pst file (use file>data file management to find the location of this) to the new machine. Then when you start Outlook for the first time point it to the pst’s new location.

For the other method, first copy your outlook express .dbx files from the old machine to the new one. These are usually located in C:Documents and Settings/username/Local Settings/Application Data/Identities/long identity no/Microsoft/Outlook Express. If you are unable to see this location you may need to change your folder options to show hidden file and folders (open my computer, go to tools>folder options then find the setting in the view tab).

On the new pc download (if not already installed) Windows Live Mail and install it. You can then go to file>import messages and select Outlook express and follow the prompts to import all your emails. Please note they will go into a folder called imported in the storage folders (one of the many things I dislike). You can then start to use this for your mail or open Outlook and import the messages from here.

I hope you found this useful – if so leave me a comment to let me know!

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