I am considering the purchase of a new computer with Windows Vista. Is it possible to transfer the email and address book from the old computer to the new computer using a USB flash drive? If so, what procedure should I follow? The current computer is running Windows Me with Outlook Express 5.

You will be glad to hear that it is possible to transfer your data between the old Windows Me computer and the new Windows Vista computer. A USB flash drive will be the easiest method to accomplish this task, since this avoids the overhead and time consuming nature of alternative options (such as setting up a network between the different computers). In previous columns you may have seen that I outlined the procedure for transferring email and address book data between two Windows XP computers. However, as you are transferring data between a Windows Me and Windows Vista computer, the procedure is quite a bit different. So, I will outline the entire process which you need to follow.

To begin, you will need to locate the relevant data from your Windows Me computer. Open Outlook Express and go to the “Tools” menu > “Options”. In the window that appears, click the “Maintenance” tab. You should see a button labelled “Store Folder”. Click this button and a window will appear showing the path to where the Outlook Express email is being stored. Write down this path, and then close Outlook Express (as it is not a good idea to copy the mail store files when Outlook Express is running). Open Windows Explorer or My Computer and navigate to this location. If you cannot see the location, you may need to enable the display of hidden files and folders. To do this, go to the “Tools” menu > “Folder Options” then click the “View” tab. Enable (tick) “Show hidden files and folders” and disable (untick) “Hide file extensions for known file types”. Click OK to save and close. Once you have found the location containing the Outlook Express mail store, copy all the files into a new folder on your USB flash drive (in fact, it is probably easier just to copy the entire folder to the flash drive).

Next we need to save the Windows Address Book to the flash drive. Open Outlook Express and then open the Address Book. In the Address Book window that appears, go to the “File” menu > “Export” > “Address Book (WAB)”. A window will appear asking where you would like to save the address book file. Save this file to your USB flash drive and click the “Save” button. At this point you have copies of both your email and address book on the flash drive and can commence the transfer of this data onto the new Windows Vista computer.

You may have noticed that Outlook Express is not included in Windows Vista. This is because the program has been renamed as Windows Mail. However, do not fear ? the program operates basically the same as Outlook Express, just the name has changed. To commence the importing procedure we first need to start Windows Mail. Click the Start button and search for “Windows Mail” (without the quotes). Once the program is found, click on the program entry to open. Once Windows Mail has started, we need to import the Outlook Express email which is saved on the USB flash drive. Go to the “File” menu > “Import” > “Messages”. Select “Microsoft Outlook Express 6″ and click “Next”. Select “Import mail from an OE6 store directory” and click OK. You now need to select the location where the mail store files are being stored, which is on your USB flash drive. Click the “Browse” button to navigate and select the folder storing the mail store files on the flash drive. Once this is done, the messages should be imported into Windows Mail. Be aware, the version of Outlook Express you are running on Windows Me is Outlook Express 5. However, there is no importing option for Outlook Express 5 within Windows Mail, but selecting Outlook Express 6 should work to import Outlook Express 5 mail. If you encounter difficulties with the importing, then please contact me again for further advice as there may be incompatibilities between the file structure of the files you are attempting to import and the files accepted by the Windows Mail importing facility.

Following the Outlook Express/Windows Mail import, you will now need to import the Windows Address Book into your new Windows Vista computer. It is worth noting that the Windows Address Book has also changed names, and is now known as Windows Contacts. To import your address book into Windows Contacts, in Windows Mail go to the “File” menu > “Import” > “Windows Contacts”. In the window that appears, select “Windows Address Book File (Outlook Express contacts” and click “Import”. A window will appear allowing you to select the Windows Address Book file to import. Select the file on your USB flash drive and click “Open”. The address book should import into Windows Contacts. You can now access all your contacts in Windows Mail through the “Tools” menu > “Windows Contacts”.