Again I was working on Windows 8, and my transfer from the older windows 7 machine, that still works... Unless the cord shorts out and everything goes dark... But that's why the new computer was purchased..... The problem is inside the computer where the power socket is soldered onto the mother board, so a new cord won't fix it....
The time to get your stuff off of the old machine is while you still can... don't put off getting a newer machine until you have catastrophic failure... and remember I had just that, as the hard drive has already gone kaput, and we are working on drive number two...
The project for today was to recover the eMails from the hard drive on the old machine and put them on the new one...
First off, I have an old mail system from my email provider... called POP3.. That's post office protocol.. And windows 8 uses the newer IMAP protocol.. So unless I get a new cable company and email accounts, I can't use W8's mail system... Well that's OK because we want Windows Live anyway for live writer.. So I use live mail as well... It still works just fine....
But where does it store those emails...?
C:\users\yourlogon\appdata\local\microsoft\windowslivemail\Yourprovidername\inbox......... Or drafts, deleted and so forth.....
Well heck yes we can find that ...... its only 8 directories deep.... But messing around with explorer killed me right after my logon name as I couldn't find appdata.... On further study and messing around, I determined the directory name is hidden.....! Microsoft doesn't want you in there...!
So with highlighting the show hidden files check box on explorer, they all became visible.. And once visible they were copied onto my backup removable hard drive... Once the same boxes were checked in Explorer on the W8 machine, the history files were copied to their respective directories on the new machine.... And it Worked!!! Well kind of.......
When I had installed the Windows Live programs on W8 and entered the email account stuff, it had pulled the emails still left on the remote server... And of course those same emails were on the older machine too... So now I had two copies of them on the new system....
With that, I spent about an hour going thru the inbox deleting emails with the same name and date using Live Mail.... But they sorted right beside each other and were easy to see... But still highlighting and deleting took a bit of time...
I'm sure there are easier ways to do this, but this is what worked for me.... Maybe just the hard drive crash and resignation that everything is gone, would be easier... But hey my email is fully populated..
Maybe it would be easier if I changed cable companies and found one that supported IMAP... Our town council picks our cable company, so that would necessitate selling our house and moving...
Are your eyes glazed over, or is this stuff interesting..?
Retired Rod
For the reasons you explained, is why I moved over to GMail. Web based, don't have to worry about all that you just went through. It worked for me.
ReplyDeleteOf course I realize you are a smart guy when it comes to computer stuff, and know all about web based email systems. Back in the day when I lost my email from a puter crash, I wasn't smart enough to know how to retrieve them. I love GMail.
Thanks for the great post.
PS: I look forward to all your puter posts. Keep em coming!
Fred, I have a Gmail account too, or I couldn't have this blog... But for more important or permanent items, I like to have the actual files on my machine... Its just me though..... You can always copy down important files and stuff from Gmail...
DeleteI, too, enjoy reading about your computer trials and tribulations. Keep them coming.
ReplyDeleteHave you tried the Windows Easy Transfer System for moving all your files and settings from a Windows 7 computer to Windows 8? Easy Transfer is part of the Windows 7 programs. It works pretty well and, I believe, it moves all of your email files as well although I'd have to recheck that to confirm.
ReplyDeleteI know it's a bit late to be mentioning this as you've probably spend hours doing all this manually. On the other hand, it's a good learning experience and good reading for us!
Great job Rod, thanks for the information!
ReplyDeleteRod,
ReplyDeleteRegarding IMAP, my only concern is if you lack an internet connection you won't be checking your email. Microsoft made many mistakes with Windows 8 (many of which get fixed in Windows 8.1 code name Blue).
Windows 8 supports IMAP however you can install WIndows Live Essentials (the parts you want to use) and you'll have the ability to use POP3 or IMAP. ;)
Here is a link.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-live/essentials-other-programs
Good luck!
Erik
Yes Eric that is what I did... Installed Live Essentials right off the bat, as when I have pictures to put on the blog, Windows Live Writer does a much better job of picture control.... Well, but sometimes I am on Linux and Live Writer doesn't work there......
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