Going back to Outlook Express 5.0

[Robert Collins]

Sometime back I was using IE 5.0 and Outlook Express 5.0. Never had any problems with either. But I upgraded to IE 6 and it also upgraded Outlook Express to 6. I have been using IE 6 and Outlook Express 6 for quite some time and have accumulated a very large database of valuable emails from places like this and other sites.

But IE 6 has caused me many many problems and I am sick and tired of it so I rebuilt my Windows 98 OS (which comes with IE 4) and I upgraded from IE4 (Outlook 4) to IE 5 and Outlook Express 5.

This is what I want to have at least for now until I switch over to XP.

My question is how do I get the email off of Outlook Express 6 and transfer it over to Outlook Express 5?

[Bieb]

I recall I once tried to move mail from Outlook on one machine to another, and I never did figure out how to do it.  Just use Thunderbird.  Does the same thing, but you can theme it, and it actually tells you where it's keeping all your mail (and it will import your mail from Outlook).

[Robert Collins]

I recall I once tried to move mail from Outlook on one machine to another, and I never did figure out how to do it.  Just use Thunderbird.  Does the same thing, but you can theme it, and it actually tells you where it's keeping all your mail (and it will import your mail from Outlook).

Thanks, Robert, but I think I made myself clear. I'm using Outlook Express, not Thunderbird or anything else. Besides, I would still have the same problem.

[Darrel]

I believe you can copy a folder such as "ImportantMail.dbx" from Outlook Express 6. Then Open Outlook Express 5 and create a folder named "ImportantMail" then close Outlook Express 5. Then paste the copied folder over the newly created one. This works for Outlook Express 6. Don't have Outlook Express 5 to verify it will work.

HTH,

Darrel

[Robert Collins]

Good idea but I don't believe it will work. There is no 'Paste' option available.

I can copy 'ImportantMail.dbx" into the clip board. Create a folder called 'ImportantMail' on OE 5. But I cannot 'Paste' what I copied on top of the file 'ImportantMail.dbx' in OE 5's folder where it keeps it nor can I paste on top of the folder within OE 5 itself.

If you have OE 5 installed then upgrade to OE 6, OE 6 will allow you to import mail from OE 5. But you cannot install OE 5 on top of OE 6. Windows won't allow you to downgrade from 6 to 5.

Also, OE 6 is on the old system which is no longer the bootable system. I have a new bootable system on another drive which has OE 5.   

I even tried copying some of the .dbx files from the OE 6 folder over to the OE 5 folder but when I bring up OE 5 it ignores those files.

[Darrel]

I even tried copying some of the .dbx files from the OE 6 folder over to the OE 5 folder but when I bring up OE 5 it ignores those files.

I had the same problem with OE 6. I was able to open OE create a new folder; then close OE; then paste the folder with the same name over the just created folder and it works fine. Have no idea why this method won't work on OE 5.

[Robert Collins]

Well, even if it did work I think there will still could be a problem because perhaps Microsoft changed the OE 6 DBX format and OE 5 wouldn't know how to read it anyway.

[sluggy]

IIRC, the two differrent versions of OE use different file formats, with different extensions, one uses .dbx and the other uses .mbx (i think .mbx is the older format). They are just database style files, your emails are still stored in clear text in them, so if nothing else you can still read them in notepad. But does OE6 require IE6? If it doesn't then why not stay with OE6 while using IE5?

[Robert Collins]

IIRC, the two differrent versions of OE use different file formats, with different extensions, one uses .dbx and the other uses .mbx (i think .mbx is the older format). They are just database style files, your emails are still stored in clear text in them, so if nothing else you can still read them in notepad. But does OE6 require IE6? If it doesn't then why not stay with OE6 while using IE5?

Both OE5 and OE6 use .dbx extensions and it appears that OE 6 also has a .mbx extension and a .idx extension. But just because the extensions are the same doesn't mean that the format is the same.

Emails may be stored in clear text but are not Notepad text style (ie, the files contain many other items such as flags, attributes, etc in binary) and it would be a very very tedious task to isolate each of the email items out of the files. I'm talking emails in the 1000's.

OE 6 requires IE 6 and that's the kicker. OE 6 is fine with me but I'm not going to install IE 6 just to have OE 6.

[MichaelW]

I hope you are running a good firewall and are careful where you go and what you do, because both IE5 and AFAIK OE5 have known vulnerabilities that have not been, and never will be, patched.

I was under the impression that OE5 and OE6 used the same file formats.

A free viewer that can save the messages as EML files:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/dbxviewer.html

The file format has been at least mostly documented (OE6 uses only DBX files):
DBX:
http://www.wotsit.org/search.asp?page=10&s=ALLFILES
MBX:
http://www.wotsit.org/search.asp?page=24&s=ALLFILES
IDX:
http://www.wotsit.org/search.asp?page=20&s=ALLFILES

http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/resources/tools.htm

[sluggy]

Emails may be stored in clear text but are not Notepad text style (ie, the files contain many other items such as flags, attributes, etc in binary) and it would be a very very tedious task to isolate each of the email items out of the files. I'm talking emails in the 1000's.

I know, that is why i said it is a database file. .idx files are index files, they contain the indexes to each record in the database file. They are still fully text searchable, and you could even go to the extent of finding out the format of the file (either thru wotsit.org or analyzing some open source software) and importing it into an Access table, or just write your own translator to translate it into any format you please. Hell, you could even parse it into XML, then use an XSLT transform to render all your mails as a web page  :8) :bdg

OE 6 requires IE 6 and that's the kicker. OE 6 is fine with me but I'm not going to install IE 6 just to have OE 6.

So install IE6 to get a working OE6, but don't use it. Use Firefox or Opera instead. This is really a non-issue, you have several options to explore.

[Ghirai]

Thanks, Robert, but I think I made myself clear. I'm using Outlook Express, not Thunderbird or anything else. Besides, I would still have the same problem.

I hope you're aware of the number of OE exploits, public and otherwise?

[Robert Collins]

Yes, I am quite aware of all the ups and downs of IE6/OE6 and several other items. When I am working on certain projects or whatever the case may be I am doing so with a full awareness of the possible consequences at hand but the point is that this is what I am doing at the time and I want to try to accomplish it regardless of whatever may or may not occur.   

I post questions in hope of getting answers or leads to help guide me through the tasks I am currently dealing with. Suggestions about using this or that instead of what I am using are appreciated but have nothing to do with the task I want to fulfill. This is true with all tasks I get involved in and perhaps later I may follow up on certain suggestions. 

[Robert Collins]

...So install IE6 to get a working OE6, but don't use it. Use Firefox or Opera instead. This is really a non-issue, you have several options to explore.

Installing IE 6 to have the usage of OE 6 will only work if I wasn't trying to use IE 5. Correct me if I am wrong but I believe that installing IE 6 will overwrite all installments of IE 5 and you cannot turn around and re-install IE 5 on top of IE 6. I tried this once in the past and it caused nothing but alot of trouble and problems.

As far as using Firefox or Opera or any other browser is not an option for me because I am trying to develop applications (BHO's for example) for IE browsers be them IE 6 or IE 5.     

My original question was how do I get the email off of Outlook Express 6 and transfer it over to Outlook Express 5?

This is what I am trying to accomplish for now, nothing else. Suggestions about using other browsers or Email clients are fine and dandy but don't really give me any help in the task I am trying to deal with. 

[sluggy]

You have restricted yourself to a hard to achieve solution because you believe certain things are not possible. You were not entirely clear with your situation description at the start, you didn't mention that you specifically wanted to use IE5, you made it sound like IE5 was your only option because you wanted to stop using IE6 (IOW you made it sound like IE6 was the main problem you were trying to solve).

It is absolutely possible to run multiple versions of IE on the same machine and it is well documented, this is a good place to start. Althouh ideally you should pick up a copy of VirtualPC or VMWare, they help tremendously with testing. Or at least make your machine dual boot, and do your testing on the secondary OS install.

These are your requirements as i read them:
- you like to use OE6 for personal email
- you dislike using IE6 for security reasons
- you need to install IE5 for testing purposes
- you have to start using OE5 because OE6 requires IE6, and you thought you could not have multiple versions of IE installed

If this analysis is correct, then what i wrote above will fix it: you can just stay with OE6 and install IE5 alongside. As for importing all your old mail, i have seen a couple of tools recently that convert between mbx and dbx, but none of those tools were free. And because people don't usually write translators that operate backwards on a product line, you might be forced to write one yourself. Think of it this way: you want a specific scenario, so you have to jump through some hoops to make it happen  :P

But i do have to mention one more thing for you to think about, and to think about this you need to put aside your dislike of IE: why are you making your BHO work with IE5.x? You might not like IE6 personally, but it is superior in many ways to 5.x. Security problems are being actively fixed in IE6 that are not being fixed in IE5. As developers, it is our duty to force encourage users to update to the more recent versions of applications, especially when the upgrade is free and there are security concerns with older versions. This is all part of helping users to help themselves.