If you delete all the DBX files with OE closed, then when you open it,
it will create new empty required folders (Inbox, Outbox, Drafts,
Deleted Items, Sent Items). You can then import the files from the
other PC.

Backing Up, Recovering and Restoring Outlook Express versions 5 & 6
Files and Settings
http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx
http://www.insideoe.com/backup/index.htm


--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm


"Ron Hirsch" wrote in message
...
Hi Robear,

Thanks for the url.

I had another thought on this subject. Rather than have to buy and
install a
utility that I would use very rarely - how about this.

XP has a small group of folders that it installs. These are the Inbox,
Sent,
etc..

I'd guess that counting subfolders, I must have another 60-70 that I
created
outside of the default OE folders.

My question is -

Suppose I went into the store folder where all my mail dbx files are
located. If I deleted them all, would this get XP/OE upset? Or, would
it
just recreate the "standard" folders that OE wants to see, the next
time it
was loaded, of course, with no messages anywhere?

Then if I imported all the dbx files from the backup of my main
machine on
an external USB drive, I would have everything all properly set up,
with no
duplicates. If deleting the "mandatory" OE folders and subfolders did
upset
OE, I know I could just delete all those which I created, and then
import
only them.

Does this seem like reasonable approach?

Ron Hirsch

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"PA Bear" wrote in message
...
No, but there are some utilities out there that can find and delete
the
dupes; e.g., http://www.oehelp.com/OEX/Default.aspx
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.org/

Ron Hirsch wrote:
One of my standard practises is to back up lots of items on my main
computer, using a script program to do so. One of the places I backup
to
is
an external USB drive. I then move that drive around to other
machines,
and
use a script to update all kinds of files et al, onto the other
machines.

I also like to then import all the mail groups and messages from OE
onto
the
other machines, and I can do that by using the import command. But,
one
problem in doing that is that the import duplicates messages into
folders,
where that message may have already been resident. The only
workaround I
see
is to delete all messsages from the target machine, before I import.
but
that's PITA.

Unlike regular files, when a file is copied into a folder, if it
already
exists there, Windows will not copy a second file with the same name,
as
that cannot exist in Windows. It will update the file, or whatever
the
user
chooses.

Is there any way around stopping identical messages from being
imported
into
OE?

Ron Hirsch