Move Windows Mail from Vista to Windows 7?

Hi guys,

The LCD display on my 5-year old Vista laptop is going so I'm ready to buy a new laptop (with Windows 7) and since Win 7 doesn't come with Windows Mail I need your advice re an email client and moving the email from my Vista laptop to that new email client.

I've been a 'heavy' Windows Mail user and since Windows 7 does not include Windows Mail I'm confused as to what to do about all of my email. Before anyone suggests Windows Live Mail, let me say that I've tried it and I do not like it. However, MS Office Outlook is a good possibility as I already use MS Word and Excel.

So my dilemma is two-fold: Which email client should I use with Win 7 and how do I move all of my Windows Mail messages and contacts from my old laptop onto the new laptop (and the new email client)?

Wendi

 

Hi Wendi

FWIW, I use Thunderbird on Win7 as I use IMAP and have found Outlook to be poor unless using POP(3). Version 7.0 is very fast and stable.

There's an abundance of information here regarding how to get your WM mails/contacts into Thunderbird.

philby

EDIT If you want to go ahead and use Outlook, as you already have Office installed, this might be trickier as you're also switching machines - see here.

 

Hi philby,

Thanks so much for your reply and those links! I do have a POP3 account from my internet provider (Cox Cable). Since I've never used Thunderbird and as I already have a license for MS Office 2007 (incl. Outlook) I think moving to Outlook would be preferable.

Wendi

 

Live Mail is simply the further evolution of what used to be Windows Mail. Not sure why you don't care for Live Mail, but it is very similar. If you have set your mind against it, then I'd probably go with Outlook. Outlook 2007 is pretty good.

 

It seems to me that MS Outlook 2007 is my best-bet as I should be able to import my Windows Mail to Outlook (both are currently on my Vista laptop) and if that's successful I then should be able to simply copy Outlook's pst file over to MS Outlook on a Win 7 laptop (per philby's link). Would you not agree?

Wendi

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PS. Fwiw, there were a couple of things about Windows Live Mail that really bothered me. One was WLM’s insistence on adding everybody I sent an email to (or replied to) into my contact list, making it unmanageable! Another was that it limited the number of send-to's I could add to any given email.

 

Hi Wendi,

Your Outlook plan sounds good. I have never imported mail into Outlook from other programs, but I'm sure it will work, especially since both are MS products. I have copied .pst files without problems many times.

As for Live Mail, there is probably a setting somewhere to keep LM from adding contacts automatically, but I'm not positive, just guessing. But Outlook sounds like your best bet, yes.

 

Thanks Kerodo, I appreciate your feedback. Other than migrating Windows Mail to Outlook, I am thinking about migrating to Thunderbird (philby's suggestion) as I really don't need the Calendar/Task functions of Outlook.

I guess I should download Thunderbird and give it a spin.

Wendi

 

Wendi, if you really would prefer using Vista's Windows Mail with Windows 7, you should read this!

 

Also if you run SFC it will bugger it up as well and there are other side effects that go along with the above mentioned basic approach. Seven Forums has Windows Mail Tutorial for getting around this along with other issues that will creep up. I did alot of testing/hacking to figure out the registry entries for fixing the hiccups that go with trying to run Win Mail on Win 7. As much as I liked it though, I finally gave in and went with Windows Live mail 2009. The first page of the Seven Forum tutorial was initially similar to the blog link but a few of us kept hacking away at it until we ironed out pretty much all the bugs.

 

Scott & Greg, I appreciate your inputs on this matter - which is very important (and pressing) to me at a time when I'm about to transition from Vista to Windows 7.

Greg, so you have struggled through this, concluding that WM just doesn't run without issues on Windows 7? If that's the case (and as I don't like WLM) it seems I would be heading in the right direction by migrating my WM to Outlook or Thunderbird.

Thanks for that feedback.

Wendi

 

Wendi, I may have mis-lead you. What I found out was that works perfect if you follow the tutorial. The only thing that we could not fix was the Help file which was talked about somewhere in those hundreds of replies. I tried but to no avail. Win 7 has a help file of the same name but more information than the Vista replacement. The only maintenance to the Vista WinMail in Win 7 would be if Vista updates the msoe.dll file. To stay as up to date as possible, one would need to replace it with a copy of the Vista WinUpdates file. So far, that has only happened once that I'm aware of and most didn't even replace it. As mentioned earlier, I'm successfully using WLM 2009 and have managed to get it to work and look most similar to WinMail. My work laptop uses the most recent WLM and it works well too but I can not get it to mimic WinMail as much as WLM 2009.

 

From my point of view, it's very weird and not really smart to discard software just because of its default settings.

Windows Live Mail can do everything Windows Mail did and better. Instead of spending time migrating to another entirely different desktop mail client, learn how to configure Windows Live Mail to suit your needs.

So, I would recommend you to post a list of your issues with Windows Live Mail if you can't find out the solutions researching alone.

 

I also support using WLM as new mail client. Besides, you can export all mail info (account and mail folders) then reimport them on the new PC. Worked like a charm !