agh, hate when this happens, did a migration to new win 10 laptop about a week ago and now the elderly couple are on the phone with MSFT office 365 rep (yes its really them) and they can't find all his contacts folders from his old win 7 machine. Don't these get copied to his user app data directory with fabs even though the target is a win 10 machine?
[REQUEST] Fab's autobackup of Windows Live contacts folders
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Porthos
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Windows LIVE mail and its contacts are different from Windows contacts. I do not remember if Outlook can import them or not. (even if they are there.) Might have to reinstall Windows LIVE mail to access and export them.
Turned into a bit of a witch hunt, I opened a win 7 virtual machine and install windows live 2012 (the same he had) and copied all the fab's mail, contacts, etc over. Logged into his email, nothing. He said no worries, I think he had the contacts in a document someplace, he really wanted to just drop it!
Hmmm... I'm picking up a Win7 machine tomorrow with Windows Live on it with a POP3 account and I was going to install Windows Live 2012 in a Win10 machine as that is what the customer requested and being a POP3 account my options are limited. Again, hmm......
carmen617
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If the Windows 7 system is working, just export the contacts to a CSV and leave it on the desktop before running FABS, then import the contacts into WLM on 10 if they don't transfer over. I've found that's just safest/best practice after getting burned a few times with IMAP contacts disappearing, etc.
It's the old mail that I'm more worried about since it's POP3 it's only on his old machine.
carmen617
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I believe FABS should work fine for the old mail, but if you are concerned WLM will also let you export the mail to a file and then import it on the other end. Working almost exclusively with end users, I've had a lot of fun with WLM over the years - the worst case scenario involves moving the WLM storage folder from one machine to the other, but that always leaves you with a lot of cleanup.
I googled around cuz it's bugging me and msft told him he needed the old win 7 machine to get them back. So that leaves me to believe you must export them not just copy the files. When I opened wlm and logged in to his acct there were extra folders but they were empty, but so we're all his messages. He had windows mail data folders too. Maybe it would have been different if I had copied the files over first before installing wlm.
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After restoring with Fabs, I use LiveContactsView from Nirsoft to open WLM contacts and save as a HTML file for easy viewing by the customer. Then I install another email client, usually Thunderbird (WLM mail data can be imported using the ImportExportTools add-on).
The fact that LiveContactsView can automatically find the contacts after restoring by Fabs indicates the contacts are restored correctly by Fabs.
The fact that LiveContactsView can automatically find the contacts after restoring by Fabs indicates the contacts are restored correctly by Fabs.
Where is the WLM storage folder located?
Yup that's were fabs put them, weird, they came up blank, he must've had them elsewhere in a document it something
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That's right for the email storage. WLM 2012 stores contacts here : Users\User_Name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live\Contacts
Older versions can store them at Users\User_Name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Contacts.
Just to say, I had no problem with contact transfer frow a WLM 2012 (clean install) on Win7 to a WLM 2012 on a Win 10 VM, they're perfectly visible.
An explanation for having blank contacts on new machine would be that WLM 2012 is not the only version that has been on that Win 7 machine. I have never tested this scenario but how could that be if there was let's say WLM 2009 installed a while back, upgraded to WLM 2011 then 2012 ?
If I am right, then @fincoder's workaround using Nirsoft tool may the best option.
thanks for the info, I think my client was confused somehow, everything looked fine, just no data, however when I set up his win 10 mail with his charter email at least all his messages were there.
HCHTech
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IMO you should be pushing as hard as you can to get them off of WLM. Yes, they are used to it. Yes, it sucks that MS abandoned it, but you can't change it. It is not reasonable to expect a program that was buggy at best to work reliably 7 years and 3 OS versions after the last update. The only thing the client will remember is that "It worked fine until you touched it". We're not on a desert island here, there are other choices that are current and supported.
I've adopted the "computer years" analogy in this situation. You know how they say 1 year of a human's life is equivalent to 7 years of a dog's life? Well, for computers and software it's about 12 years to 1. You wouldn't want an 84-year-old mailman responsible for all of your mail, would you (no offense to any octogenarians here!)?
I've adopted the "computer years" analogy in this situation. You know how they say 1 year of a human's life is equivalent to 7 years of a dog's life? Well, for computers and software it's about 12 years to 1. You wouldn't want an 84-year-old mailman responsible for all of your mail, would you (no offense to any octogenarians here!)?
It's a good thought until you run into a POP3 account. Then things get messy.
Autobackup installs a second set of email folders on the restore. WLM always insists on making it's own new mail folders. The only way I've come close to moving is to install WLM and not open it so there is no WLM directory. Then copying the complete WindowsLiveMail directory over from the previous machine.
Your PCMD
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I can verify that Outlook will export/import contacts. Have done that 11 times for one of my clients company just last week and all contacts were exported then imported.
Nope. As I said in my post above, Thunderbird can import WLM mail data (even after restore by Fabs, without WLM installed). All you need is the ImportExportTools add-on.
Also emClient can import WLM data, accounts, and I believe contacts. It might not work from restored Fabs data though.
DavidH
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Definitely works from restored Fabs. I am convincing clients using WLM to move off it. I have help in that many of the email providers are refusing to support wlm for outgoing email , saying it’s insecure.
