Xp oe to win 8.1 email

Major Geeks may be my last hope. You really helped before when no one else could with a virus problem I had. This time it's specifically with email. As you all know XP is coming to an end soon. I have been using XP PRO on an XP machine for years with 5 Outlook Express email accounts. As you can imagine
my folders and 5 accounts are bulging with data, contacts, and stuff I can't afford to lose or corrupt. But Microsoft tells me I can't use OE on a HP computer with Windows 8.1 (64 bit) so I can't transfer my XP OE directly to HP 8.1 and have not been successful to otherwise find a way to migrate/transfer my accounts without corrupting their identities too much.

I have tried with Thunderbird by first installing it on XP (thinking I could then migrate Thunderbird to HP), but when I imported OE accounts and folders into Thunderbird on XP I could only see about a dozen messages in the inbox out of the several hundred I actually had in XP inbox. Thinking there was a error in the import I uninstalled T-bird on XP and reinstalled so as to import only one of five XP OE accounts and intending to repeat that four more times for the rest, and THEN transfer them all to HP. But when I opened T-bird (before importing anything) that same condition with only a dozen inbox messages were already showing along with the folders. So now even if I could install 5 separate t-bird accounts on both machines I still don't know if I could successfully preserve all five identities with all their messages.

I have considered using Outlook instead of Thunderbird but that would mean I need Outlook on XP which I don't have (32 bit) so it seems I would have to buy that especially for XP in order to transfer it to HP. (Thanks a lot for nothing BG, you $%$#^&*^%(*)_#@!) Pardon my english.

If any Major Geek out there has the solution I need please lead me by the hand on how to do it. Thanks :-D

 

It seems that Windows Live Mail can import OE data. What email client do you want to use on Windows 8?

 

The one that best resembles OE interface while faithfully preserving all OE data, addresses, & folders.

When I tried installing Thunderbird first in my XP it didn't make sense in that regard because most of the inbox messages were missing if in fact what I saw was the collective inbox of all 5 imported accounts...but I don't know that because I'm not sure T-Bird showed the collective inbox of all five accounts when it opened, as OE was set to do (my understanding of T-Bird importing was it would keep the same settings as OE, but it did not look like it did if most of the inbox messages were missing). That's why I thought of trying Outlook instead which I didn't have in XP. But am I confusing Outlook (Office) with MS Outlook that replaced Hotmail? If that's the case then could I install MS Outlook after all in XP, import everything from OE and then migrate it to HP which would also have Outlook? If that works well could I download T-Bird in 8 later and migrate everything again to T-Bird? What do you think? This is hurting my brain!

 

I'm quite sure this can be done with T-Bird but it might be better to ask in their forum. BTW the Outlook that has replaced Hotmail is not the same thing at all as the Outlook in Office. It is a webmail service that you can use in conjunction with an email client such as Office Outlook using POP or IMAP. I recommend you stick with T-Bird, which is what I intend doing with a friend who is in the same boat.

 

Thanks Earthing, frankly I initially preferred T-Bird but when I tried the install and import from OE (on XP), what I saw when opening T-Bird evidently was only a small portion of all my inbox messages. I still don't know if that was a result of corrupting OE data or if there's something I don't understand about the T-bird interface. Very confusing (to me) when compared to OE though T-Bird is more streamlined (and relatively free of MS) which I liked. Can you explain how I can mostly preserve the 5 account interfaces in T-Bird, as they are in OE? And why (or how) can T-Bird re import everything again (before I tell it to import) after I have first uninstalled it in order to try another import on XP?

Or should I go to the T-Bird forums? :-o

 

Until I've tried it myself I can't really advise. But I would try the T-Bird forum too as there are a lot of ppl in this fix. Windows Live Mail has also been suggested but I don't believe it's being supported any more, last version appears to be 2011. Might be wrong.

 

An important question - I assume your accounts in OE are all POP accounts, not IMAP?

 

Just wanted to update not leaving my thread hanging. Before I forget thanks for your suggestions. What I finally did (because I would have crashed everything if I tried anything further) is call my ISP (Windstream) tech help. They ended up transferring my OE account data from xp to 8.1 using Windows Live Mail program. After 2 tries they managed to do that (but had to go to a level 2 technician because of the same errors encountered when I tried with Thunderbird) and it seems to be completely over now. I must say though I detest Live Mail, not user friendly, not in any way the same as OE, and relatively difficult to use as well as jumbling my email folders so I can't find anything. I will have to try and find a way to fix that but at least I am up and running again before the end of xp date cutoff so I will be fairly safe with 8.1 now instead of at risk with xp after April 8th. Thank you all for your help.

Now I'll have to go to another forum thread (for my internet connections) because I have to find a way to make 8.1 hardwired to the modem, and now make xp wireless sharing the connection).