It seems worth having something specific for those new Windows 7 users
coming from Windows XP with Outlook Express or Vista with Windows Mail,
with relation to both support and marketing. How do they best migrate
their data from Outlook Express, if that Outlook Express is installed on
another older computer? What should they do when they forgot the
password they typed into Outlook Express five years ago? I haven't seen
any of this, but I don't follow international support closely. Has there
been anything? This was a great opportunity for getting new users. Has
it been taken?
Strictly speaking, this is better for the mozilla.support.thunderbird
newsgroup. However, I happen to have had to do this sort of thing twice
in the past two weeks, so let me elaborate on the easiest way:
1. Install Thunderbird on the old machine. When you start it up, cancel
out of the smart account config and then import settings from the
appropriate client. Depending on the size of the mailbox to be imported
(and the performance of the old computer in general), this can take a
few hours.
2. Move the files to the new machine.
<http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Thunderbird>
is a more thorough document than I can hope to provide here.
There is an inherent limitation in Thunderbird right now in that it
can't import data from Outlook or Outlook Express (possibly newer
alternatives: I'm not sure) unless Outlook itself is installed on the
machine with the correct data. The current method of import essentially
boils down to "ask Outlook for all of its data"; it doesn't read any of
the internal file formats. There are numerous bugs asking for that
feature, but the biggest problem boils down to the fact that Outlook
stores its data in an internal format whose specification has yet to be
released [1].
Suppose you can't do step one, then what do you do? The best answer I
can give there is to attempt to copy that data into the newer MS version
on the new computer and do the import in the new computer, in two
different programs (Windows (Live) Mail and then Thunderbird). I believe
that TB can import from the newer counterparts of Outlook Express, but I
am not certain.
[1] MS has stated their intentions to release this internal format in
the first half of 2010. It seems unlikely that anyone will even attempt
to fix this issue before this happens. This doesn't mean that people
will jump up and fix bugs as soon as it's released though; if, as seems
likely, it is over a 1000 pages long, it will probably be another three
or four years before people get something mildly functional.
Ok. I was in doubt if I should post in mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird or
mozilla.support.planning, but the latter seems to be Firefox only.
Yes, that is the way to do it as far as I know. But I can only find
articles about it in deeply technical pages like the MozillaZine KB
article you linked, and I haven't been able to find anything on the
official support page on mozillamessaging.com. The fact that many users
ask about it may indicate that they cannot find such documentation
either. Should it be more visible?
>
> [1] MS has stated their intentions to release this internal format in
> the first half of 2010. It seems unlikely that anyone will even attempt
> to fix this issue before this happens. This doesn't mean that people
> will jump up and fix bugs as soon as it's released though; if, as seems
> likely, it is over a 1000 pages long, it will probably be another three
> or four years before people get something mildly functional.
That is news to me, thank you. It will be interesting to see what
happens once it is released.
Dan
I suppose I could translate my article
(http://wiki.mozilladanmark.dk/wiki/Thunderbird/Importer_mails_og_kontakter_til_Thunderbird_p%C3%A5_ny_computer)
to English, but the new site does not seem to be up yet.
Thanks!
Dan