Error Importing Outlook Express Email Mail Store into Windows Mail

You have to be fairly techincal even to try this trick ... make a copy of your Outlook Express Email Store (the folder where your Windows XP Outlook Express Email was stored), move it to your new Windows Vista Computer, and import your mail.

"Import Messages – No messages can be found in this folder or another application is running that has the required files open."

You browse to the email store, but Windows Mail says it is not there! But it is! You just copied it over ...

You are not alone. It keeps happening to me (I fix computers for a living), and I keep expecting a service pack or patch to fix it. No luck yet.

Importing Outlook Express Email into Windows Mail - SOLVED

Here is the simple solution to this stupid problem.

When you browse to ..your_path..\Outlook Express\, Windows Mail decides that you meant ..your_path..\Outlook Express\Outlook Express\.

What I have been doing is:

• going to my original Outlook Express folder,
• creating a new folder called Outlook Express inside of it,
• moving the original contents of the original Outlook Express folder into the new, nested Outlook Express folder,
• and then pointing once again, in Windows Mail, to the original Outlook Express folder.

Now that I think of it, I may have been just as successful pointing to the folder above Outlook Express ... if it added \Outlook Express\ to that, it would see the correct files.

I'll try that the next time, but meanwhile, creating the new Outlook Express folder certainly works.