Question:

Using Windows Live Mail on my Windows 7-Pro computer, I copied my Hotmail Account folders and messages to my computer hard drive. Next, I dragged and dropped a copy from my hard drive to a USB Flash drive. Next, using the USB flash drive, I copied the Hotmail EMail folders and message files to my Windows XP, with service Pak 7, computer.

I want to use my older model Win XP computer as a backup method of viewing these EMail messages. What is the best app to use for this? Please note that I  do not care about synching up my Hotmail Account with folders and EMail messages on my Win XP computer.

Note, that as per my posting of 05/13/2015, I have not been able to find a Windows Live Mail version that is compatible with my Win XP-Service Pak7 machine. Furthermore, I have Outlook Express 6 and Microsoft Office Outlook-2003 on my Win XP computer. Oddly enough, when I view my EMail messages files using Windows (File) Explorer on my Win7-Pro computer, it denotes the File Type as “Windows Live Mail”. Furthermore, when I view these same EMail messages on my Win XP computer, the File Type is denoted as “Outlook Express Mail Message” even though I created them using Windows Live Mail

Also, for my Win XP computer, if I double click on an EMail message file, it opens in Outlook Express 6 and I am able to read it. This is great except that these EMail message files, originally copied to my Win7-Pro computer hard drive using Windows Live Mail, have weird 16 character alpha-numeric Names, such as 02B153B2-00000019. Thus, when I scroll through them on my Win XP machine, I cannot easily identify a file that I am looking for and want to read.

With the help of the MS Help Community, Ron Sommer, I was able to overcome this issue on my Win7-Pro computer by browsing to the folders containing these EMail messages, left click on a Hotmail EMail message folder of interest, then right click on the column header, “Name”, and check off to display the “Subject”, “Date Received” (or “Date Sent”) and “Author” and un check stuff I don’t need such file - “Date Modified”, “Size” & “Type”. This worked great on my Win7-Pro computer but not my Win XP computer. In fact, I am able to perform the steps described above but when I check off “Subject”, “Date Received” (or “Date Sent”) and “Author”, I get blank info in these columns for each EMail message file, as viewed on my Win XP machine.

Also, if I double left click on an EMail message file, my Win XP machine will open it with Outlook Express 6 and I can read it (great!!) BUT if I open Outlook Express 6, I do not see a way to browse to the EMail message files and import them so I can see the EMail message “Subject”, “Date Received” (or “Date Sent”) and “Authors”, and then select and read them. Is there a way to import them to Outlook Express 6? Or what app can I download for viewing these EMail message files on my Win XP computer?

Mark18