4 ms·

It's remarkable that you didn't just tick the box to show hidden files and directories, along with unticking the box to hide extensions on known file types. Bac

by KGIII 9y ago

It's remarkable that you didn't just tick the box to show hidden files and directories, along with unticking the box to hide extensions on known file types. Back when I used Windows, those were the first settings I changed. (There was one more in that same section, but I've forgotten it.) Anyhow, backup and restoration was both possible and pretty easy: https://library.columbia.edu/content/dam/librarywebsecure/behind_the_scenes/ford-ifp/Archiving_Emails_in_Outlook_Express_6.pdf https://library.columbia.edu/content/dam/librarywebsecure/be... While it was binary and proprietary, several freeware solutions existed to work with the files and a bunch of paid software did even more. Either way, backing up and restoring wasn't all that difficult and certainly wasn't impossible. (For a number of years, I was awarded the Microsoft MVP in Shell/User, IE/OE, and Security categories. The latter only awarded twice as I stopped helping and went back to Linux, sort of returning to my roots which were in Unix.)

WalterBright 9y ago
> It's remarkable that you didn't just tick the box to show hidden files and directories Of course I did, how do you think I found them? :-) BTW, I talked to support on the phone about this, they told me that backup/restore was not supported by OE and I was on my own with it. > While it was binary and proprietary, several freeware solutions existed to work with the files and a bunch of paid software did even more. Either way, backing up and restoring wasn't all that difficult and certainly wasn't impossible. Oh, I eventually did figure out how to back it up and restore it. My point is this is something the application itself should be able to do. It's a fundamental thing it should do. As for the proprietary binary format, it turns out that Thunderbird said it could import it. I breathed a sigh of relief when it did so successfully. I should not have to rely on 3rd party tools to backup/restore/decode critical data for my business. With TB there was no longer any reason to put up with that. BTW, I have files going back 40 years, and email archives going back 25 years. The machines and programs that worked with those files are long gone. I prefer to store things as text files for long term storage, as much as possible, or at least the most common file formats like jpg. Storing in a binary, proprietary format just isn't acceptable. P.S. I used a bunch of file compressors back in the DOS days, and before DOS died I uncompressed all of those archives and stored the uncompressed files. P.P.S. Thanks for taking the time to write out the tips, I hope there are others this can help.

by KGIII 9y ago

WalterBright 9y ago

> It's remarkable that you didn't just tick the box to show hidden files and directories Of course I did, how do you think I found them? :-) BTW, I talked to support on the phone about this, they told me that backup/restore was not supported by OE and I was on my own with it. > While it was binary and proprietary, several freeware solutions existed to work with the files and a bunch of paid software did even more. Either way, backing up and restoring wasn't all that difficult and certainly wasn't impossible. Oh, I eventually did figure out how to back it up and restore it. My point is this is something the application itself should be able to do. It's a fundamental thing it should do. As for the proprietary binary format, it turns out that Thunderbird said it could import it. I breathed a sigh of relief when it did so successfully. I should not have to rely on 3rd party tools to backup/restore/decode critical data for my business. With TB there was no longer any reason to put up with that. BTW, I have files going back 40 years, and email archives going back 25 years. The machines and programs that worked with those files are long gone. I prefer to store things as text files for long term storage, as much as possible, or at least the most common file formats like jpg. Storing in a binary, proprietary format just isn't acceptable. P.S. I used a bunch of file compressors back in the DOS days, and before DOS died I uncompressed all of those archives and stored the uncompressed files. P.P.S. Thanks for taking the time to write out the tips, I hope there are others this can help.