backing up Windows Live Mail contacts

I have a problem here because the program as a whole is down and I can't reinstall it either.

I can find all the emails quite easily for the purposes of backing up but the contacts folder seems to be harder to find .

For example I can do a search for an email that I know I have on the hard drive: I can just type in a search term in the Search box just above the Start button (in Windows 7) and the email shows .

I still have to open the email with another program (called FreeFile Opener) but at least I know the files are there.

The same trick will not work for the contacts folder and I suppose they are either lost or hidden .

Can anyone point me to their actual location -or even to a program that will read them for me until such time as I have successfully reinstalled Windows 7 (followed by reinstalling Windows Live Mail) ?

 

thanks but the problem is that the program is down so I cannot use it for any purposes at all until I get it fixed.

I cannot fix it because the download from the Microsoft site won't load on my computer and so I may have to reinstall Windows 7 itself and then reinstall Windows Live Mail at that point.

But I don't want to arrive at that point and discover that I have not backed up all the information in the Windows Live Mail application (then it would be gone forever).

So I want to do it manually and I need to know the name of the particular file that holds all the contact information (I think I can see all the actual emails :it is just the contacts that are not obvious)

 

Try this location: C:\Users\"User Name"\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Contacts

The discussion at http://www.vistax64.com/live-mail/274710-windows-live-mail-contacts-stored-where.html may be helpful.