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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 4:58 pm 
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I'm using Windows Live Mail on both computers running Win 7. I want to move all my email messages from old computer to new computer.

I located my email storage store folder, copied the entire Windows Live Mail folder, and then pasted it to my external drive. The copy process started and was estimated to take almost 3 hours (I have many emails, lol). After about 10 minutes the copy process stopped and a window pops up telling me that the properties of this email message can't be transferred. I then had a choice for this and all other email messages to: (1) skip copying this message, or (2) copy the messages without it's properties.

I chose (2) - copy all email messages without their properties.

I guess my question is........what are these properties and why weren't they transferable? If I look on my external drive, it appears that all my emails and storage folders got transferred, but I'm a little apprehensive about importing them to my new computer until I understand what these properties were.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice.

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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 9:01 pm 
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I am not sure what properties were being referred to.

Rather than copy the storage folders, why did you not use the export function from within Windows Live Mail and them Import on the new PC?

-steve

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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 9:19 pm 
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sboots wrote:
I am not sure what properties were being referred to.

Rather than copy the storage folders, why did you not use the export function from within Windows Live Mail and them Import on the new PC?

-steve

Old habit, I guess. But subsequent to posting my issue, I did start using the export function. For now, I just directed the stored messages to an empty folder on my desktop where I can study them. It appears that most of my email folders and messages got transferred to this folder, but I'm missing a few. So that is what I am currently investigating.

BTW, my new computer arrived Monday and I am in the process of populating it with those programs and features I want to keep from my old computer (both running Win 7). And thus far, I'm doing this without using Easy Transfer. :D

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 1:01 am 
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My guess is that it is talking about NTFS (NT File System) properties that are attached to every file on a system formatted as NTFS. Could it be that your external drive is formatted as FAT32 (an older file system that doesn't support attaching extra data to a file)? It would be if that "drive" is a USB stick. A CD doesn't support the added NTFS data either, as it uses CDFS, CD File System.

If you right-click a file, try it with a data file like a Word doc or picture, and go to properties. Explore the various tabs and you will see all sorts of data attached to the file; things like author, or camera settings, etc. This is called metadata. It is added data about data. That is the data you will lose. If you don't want to lose it, format your stick as NTFS.

If anyone needs a further explanation of file systems, please ask.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 8:15 am 
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Ah! Yes, I believe Patty is right regarding the file properties from the NTFS source drive.
-steve

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 10:44 am 
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MacDuffie wrote:
My guess is that it is talking about NTFS (NT File System) properties that are attached to every file on a system formatted as NTFS. Could it be that your external drive is formatted as FAT32 (an older file system that doesn't support attaching extra data to a file)? It would be if that "drive" is a USB stick. A CD doesn't support the added NTFS data either, as it uses CDFS, CD File System.

If you right-click a file, try it with a data file like a Word doc or picture, and go to properties. Explore the various tabs and you will see all sorts of data attached to the file; things like author, or camera settings, etc. This is called metadata. It is added data about data. That is the data you will lose. If you don't want to lose it, format your stick as NTFS.

If anyone needs a further explanation of file systems, please ask.

Thanks, Patty.....no wonder you are our leader. 8-)

I am familiar with metadata, as I often refer to it on some of my game camera photos and videos. It didn't dawn on me that this metadata might be what I was losing. I'll have to investigate some of my email files to see what metadata might be attached to them, as I can't imagine it would be of any importance to me. That said, my external drive was formatted in NTFS.

Last night I used the WLM export function to copy all my email messages to my external drive. I didn't get any notice about losing data; however, as before a few of my storage folders did not get copied, so that's an issue to work for today before I do the import to new computer. If I can't solve this issue, I can probably live without these few folders.

Thanks again for the response.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 1:00 pm 
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In that case you would have to look at the properties of one specific file whose properties wouldn't transfer and see what is there. Then transfer it, losing its properties, and then check the properties of the transferred file to see what is missing. Compare the two and let us know what you find. That might give us the answer to why the properties won't transfer.

It could still be an NTFS issue, perhaps file properties that relate to a specific user that might be treated as secure data.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 3:42 pm 
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MacDuffie wrote:
In that case you would have to look at the properties of one specific file whose properties wouldn't transfer and see what is there. Then transfer it, losing its properties, and then check the properties of the transferred file to see what is missing. Compare the two and let us know what you find. That might give us the answer to why the properties won't transfer.

It could still be an NTFS issue, perhaps file properties that relate to a specific user that might be treated as secure data.

As best I recall, as soon as the actual messages started transferring is when I got the notice about losing properties if I wanted to continue with the transfer. So I assume all messages lost their properties.

I just did what you suggested and compared a couple of messages before and after the transfer. Before the transfer (i.e., looking at the original message), if I click on properties and then detail, what I see is the 'Internet headers for this message' plus a Message Source button.

Now, if I look at the same message file after it has been transferred, I see the usual properties of: Name, Type, Folder Path, Size, Dates, Attribute, Owner, and Computer. Although I haven't yet Imported any of the messages to my new computer, when I do I assume it will be these usual properties that I will see. Then I guess the properties that I lost are the 'Internet headers', which I no longer care about.

OK, here is something else I noticed when transferring email messages. The discussion in the paragraphs above was based on looking at the transferred files when I used the old method of locating my storage folder and copying it to my external drive. But when I use the Export method suggested by Steve, then the transferred messages have two sets of properties: (1) The usual set of Name, Type, Folder Path, Size, etc. and (2) A new tab titled Security that shows Group/Users and Permissions for SYSTEM.

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. At this point I'm tired of looking at message properties, since I am trying to move about 33,000 message files (yes, 13 GBs). The message contents are all I'm interested in, and it looks like Microsoft will do whatever it wants with the properties.

Thanks again for your response.......

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 8:42 pm 
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OK, BB. ;)

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 Post Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 12:36 pm 
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I'm happy to report that all my email messages (33,000 of them) have been successfully transferred to my new computer! I used the old method of locating my storage folder and copying it to my external drive, rather than the export method......consequently I lost the NTFS properties that Patty talked about. However, I did retain the Internet Header info for each message, which is actually more important to me for email messages than the NTFS info.

The reason I used the old method of copying my storage folder to the external drive is because I had already done this when Steve reminded me that I could use export/import. And that had taken me a couple of hours to copy that folder, so I didn't want to repeat that long process using export. And BTW, when I imported this storage folder to the SSD drive of my new 'screaming' computer, it only took a matter of minutes.

I did encounter one minor issued when transferring my email messages, but it was easily fixable once I realized what was happening. I'll try to explain this issue below.

Back on my old computer when I initially set up my individual email folders for saving messages, I had some individual's names (e.g., John Smith) contained within subfolders (e.g., Fishing Buddies). I later extracted John's name and his saved messages from the Fishing Buddies folder and made him a higher-level folder like most of the other individuals (e.g., Sue Black, Mary Brown, John Smith). Well, old John Smith and his saved messages were missing on my new computer, until I thought to look in the Fishing Buddies folder where I had put him years ago. Once I realized that WLM didn't keep up with these later location changes, I was able to locate a couple of other missing names/messages.

I might not have done the best job in my above explanation, so respond with any questions and I will try to answer.

And again, thanks to everyone who responded to my original post. I was really worried about retaining all my old email messages, and now that it has been accomplished I will sleep better tonight.

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 Post Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 1:43 pm 
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Pleased to hear you got everything transferred without too many problems. You can now enjoy your new screaming computer. ;-)

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 Post Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 2:44 pm 
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Very well done! :)

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