Getting to those pesky Outlook Express files

A friend of mine was asking how to find the emails for Outlook Express on his hard disk drive. So I thought that I should post these instructions for him and others who may find it difficult to get at these files.

In Windows 2000 or Windows XP:

Open ‘My Computer’

Goto your C: drive (or wherever it is you happen to have Windows installed today)

Now follow the path through

• Documents and Settings
• Username (that’s who you log on as)
• Local Settings
• Application Data
• Identities
• A funny folder name like {D552A680-D50A-4F31-821D-6A49A91D786E}
• Microsoft
• Outlook Express
• And there are your Outlook Express files.

See? Easy.

All of your OE files have a .dbx extension. These are database files, and as such you will not be able to read the mail without opening the files in Outlook Express.

If you’re not sure exactly who you are, click ‘Start’, then ‘Run…’ and type cmd. In the prompt (the black-box thing) type SET and press enter on the keyboard. One line should read USERPROFILE=. What you see after the = sign is the path to your user account.

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