Windows 7 - Windows Live Mail - Import Windows Mail Messages

I have followed your instructions to export my messages from Windows Mail off of my desktop with Vista to try to import it to my new laptop with Windows 7. After exporting and saving a copy to my desktop, when I got into Windows Live Mail and try to import, I follow the instructions to find the files. After having found them when I try to go to the next step I get the message "No messages can be found in this folder or another application is running that has the required files open. Please select another folder or try closing applications that may have files open." I don't know what to do at this point. The program is closed on my desktop computer, and I haven't gotten the files open anywhere else that I know of. Does anyone have any input on what I am doing wrong? I would really appreciate the help. Thanks.

Hello Darcie, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Double check while going through the steps one more time to make sure that you exported into a new empty folder, and that you only select the new folder and not any of the subfolders in it when importing.

I am trying to import contacts and messages into Windows Live mail on a new Windows 7 machine. All posts I have read (including this tutorial) say to click the File menu, then import, then messages. But there is no file menu... the ALT key displays a BROWSER file menu only (no mail import options), and the ALT-M suggestion does not display a "Show Menu Bar" option as stated in this tutorial.
What am I missing?

Hello Gholovacs, and welcome to Seven Forums.

I add a second right screenshot to step 4 to help show you where in Windows Live Mail for the "Show menu bar" option.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Brink: Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, I don't have the Icon you show in the new JPG either. In fact, I don't have that entire toolbar that you show.
I suspect I might not really be in Windows Live Mail at all... Maybe I got into Windows Hotmail instead, which has fewer features.
But if that's true, I don't see any way to get into the real Windows Live Mail... I entered "Windows Live Mail" in the program search field, and this is where it brought me. Thinking it might not be installed, I even tried downloading MS Windows Live Essentials again, and a message box indicated that Windows Live Mail was already installed.
I'm attaching a screenshot of what I'm looking at. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

LOL, I see why now. You are accessing it from the hotmail website instead of using Windows Live Mail.

Amazing what happens when you use the right program! Thanks for your help!

For others out there who, like me, get into Windows Hotmail instead of the real Windows Live Mail: I found that putting "Windows Live Mail" in the program search box did not work for me. Each time I did that, I saw a listing for "Windows Live Mail" , but it was in fact a link to Hotmail instead!!

To get to the REAL Windows Live Mail, don't use the Search box. Instead, open the existing "Windows Live" folder, then select "Windows Live Mail" from those items.

Hope this helps the next guy.

That's great news Gholovacs. Thank you for posting back your results.

I also could not import messages into a new Windows Live Mail (running on Windows 7) from a Windows Live Mail running on another computer (Windows XP). I had both the 'empty folder' message and the apparently successful transfer but nothing turning up in the storage folders. The process just increased the number of storage folders in the receiving Live Mail with each 'transfer', all of them empty. Changing the files to be transferred by removing the 'read only' property did not solve the problem either. There is clearly a problem with this process which is not simply caused by people not doing it properly but equally it is obviously working for a lot of others.

When I looked at the folders I was using to import from, they contained all the email files I was wanting to transfer. In a last throw of the dice before giving up, I tried the old 'drag and drop' technique, and it worked. Moreover, instead of putting all my transferred emails into storage folders, separate from my active account, I inserted them directly into the active account folders. Everything was together as it should be. So the process was:

1. Export from old mail client (in my case, Live Mail) to folders as described by the tutorials. I used empty folders in My Documents, one each for the in box, sent mail and deleted messages.
2.Copy these folders to an external hard drive or memory stick (I found that the export did not work directly to folders created on the external drive for some reason).
3. Connect the external drive to the new computer and open this drive and then open the folder containing, for example, the in box messages.
4. Open your importing Live Mail then open the in box folder, as you would to read the emails in it.
5. Simply drag and drop. Repeat with each folder until all the messages have been transferred.