I appreciate the responses, and forgive me because I am so computer
illiterate. but I found the folder where the outlook express .dbx folders
are kept. When I double click on them I am prompted to choose which program
to open the folder with. Unfortunately Outlook or Outlook Express are not on
the list of choices. Is there another way I can choose express to open those
files or am I going about opening them in the totally wrong way?

How do you open an MP3 file? With a media player.

How do you open a .dbx file? With Outlook Express.

You are essentially seeing what is in a .dbx file when you open a folder in
OE and view the messages.

The files in their state in the Message Store are not meant to be opened or
read there.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS MVP - Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

"Aurora" wrote in message
...
I appreciate the responses, and forgive me because I am so computer
illiterate. but I found the folder where the outlook express .dbx folders
are kept. When I double click on them I am prompted to choose which
program
to open the folder with. Unfortunately Outlook or Outlook Express are not
on
the list of choices. Is there another way I can choose express to open
those
files or am I going about opening them in the totally wrong way?

Hi Aurora

Perhaps this will help.

When you open Outlook Express, all folders, eg: inbox, outbox, drafts and
other folder information you observe is stored in it's DBX files.

To view where these file are you can go to Tools | Options | Maintenance
tab and click Store Folder.

Observe the displayed path, it should be identical to your dbx files in
question,

Ken

"Aurora" wrote in message
...
| I appreciate the responses, and forgive me because I am so computer
| illiterate. but I found the folder where the outlook express .dbx folders
| are kept. When I double click on them I am prompted to choose which
program
| to open the folder with. Unfortunately Outlook or Outlook Express are not
on
| the list of choices. Is there another way I can choose express to open
those
| files or am I going about opening them in the totally wrong way?

OE uses dbx files, but will not open a dbx file if you click on one dbx
file.
The OE store folder contains a dbx file for every message folder in OE plus
folders.dbx, pop3uidl.dbx, and offline.dbx.
When OE displays the folder list, it uses folders.dbx to show the folders
used in that Identity.
If you open the Inbox folder in OE, OE uses inbox.dbx.
File, Open in OE opens a folder or a message.
It doesn't open a dbx file.

If you corrupt a dbx file by trying to open with another program, you could
lose all messages in that file.

The safest is to have no program associated with opening dbx files.
--
Ron Sommer


"Aurora" wrote in message
...
I appreciate the responses, and forgive me because I am so computer
illiterate. but I found the folder where the outlook express .dbx folders
are kept. When I double click on them I am prompted to choose which
program
to open the folder with. Unfortunately Outlook or Outlook Express are not
on
the list of choices. Is there another way I can choose express to open
those
files or am I going about opening them in the totally wrong way?