Migrate Outlook Express newsgroup messages

  • Thread starter Thread starter Martin Kulov
  • Start date Start date
M

Martin Kulov

Is there any way to migrate all NEWS messages from Outlook Express to
Windows Mail?

I copied all the files from the Idenitity directory but I do not know
how to import the new messages into Windows Mail.
I also migrated all existing news accounts but I do not know how to
migrate the actual news messages.


Thanks,
Martin Kulov, MVP
 
Martin Kulov said:
Is there any way to migrate all NEWS messages from Outlook Express to
Windows Mail?

I copied all the files from the Idenitity directory but I do not know
how to import the new messages into Windows Mail.
I also migrated all existing news accounts but I do not know how to
migrate the actual news messages.
Click to expand...

Why not simply re download all messages,
on the server from scratch?

Any messages that have expired on the server
can be accessed via Google Groups or some such.
 
Newsgroup messages cannot be moved.
You have to redownload them.
--
Ronald Sommer

: Is there any way to migrate all NEWS messages from Outlook Express to
: Windows Mail?
:
: I copied all the files from the Idenitity directory but I do not know
: how to import the new messages into Windows Mail.
: I also migrated all existing news accounts but I do not know how to
: migrate the actual news messages.
:
:
: Thanks,
: Martin Kulov, MVP
:
 
Hi, Martin.

The answer is yes - but don't bother. :>(

I've done that several times, and each time I then had to re-subscribe to
the newsgroups and re-download the messages all over again - and then delete
all the thousands of messages I had imported into WM. As you said, the News
Accounts can be imported, but not the newsgroup subscriptions. The messages
will be imported, but not in a form that WM can associate with the news
account or subscriptions. All your Read messages will again be marked as
Unread again.

As you probably know, OE stored ALL the messages for an email folder in a
single .dbx file, like Inbox.dbx. It also stored all news posts for each
newsgroup in a single .nws file, like microsoft.public.windowsxp..nws (or
was it .dbx? I can't recall.) And then there was a Folders.dbx file that
was the key to all the other .dbx files. (Also, WM does not use OE's
"Identities" at all; I never used Identities, but others here can tell you
how to deal with that.)

WM stores EACH individual message in its own .eml or .nws file. This means
that 1,000 messages in one folder, each 4 KB long, would be stored by OE as
a single 4 MB .dbx file. In WM, though, these will be 1,000 separate 4 KB
..eml files. Processing a single message file is much quicker now, and
corruption in one won't affect all the others. But it takes a lot longer
for the file system to process 1,000 small files and one large file, so the
Import process takes a long time.

Given all that, it doesn't make sense to import thousands of .nws files,
only to have to delete them later (and deleting 1,000 files also takes a
long time).

I've now migrated to Windows Live Mail beta (build 12.0.1184), but the
Import process is the same as in WM.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail beta in Vista Ultimate x64)
 
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