Windows Live Mail Contacts

Hi guys. I hope I can make this clear to understand and not too confusing.

I've recently run Killdisk, reinstalled Windows 7 Pro x64 on my laptop, got it to where I wanted, including all MS updates and email, and have done an Acronis backup.

Before the format, I manually saved the email folder with all it's account and email content. Then reinstalled WLM on the fresh W7 install, went to 'Users/Me/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows Live Mail', deleted what was in there, and then pasted my saved email folder contents. Loaded WLM and hey presto, everything there, with all my emails. No problem with that.


The next thing is putting my mail contacts back (also manually saved before the format) but I can't get them to show up. They normally reside as DBStore files in Windows Live Contacts folder, also in the same area as the email. 'Users/Me/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows Live Contacts'. So I put that folder there but nothing appears in my contacts when I load up WLM.

I removed the whole folder, and decided to do a test and add a new contact in WLM. I found out the new contact has appeared in a different place, 'Users/Me/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows Live/Contacts/Default' and then inside there, a folder saying 15.5, and inside that, a DBStore file. As another test, by removing the DBStore from 15.5, my contact disappeared in WLM but reappeared when I restored the DBStore file to the 15.5 folder.

By adding a new contact, I had expected windows to create a new Windows Live Contacts folder but it didn't. I tried putting all my saved contacts folder in the 15.5 folder, but they still don't appear. Any ideas where to put my contacts folders to get them showing up?

By the way, there were 8 folders that I saved, each with a DBStore file. One of them is 8MB, some are 6MB, and most are 4MB. I don't know if I need them all. Perhaps they're cumulative and only the 8MB has all my contacts?

Screenshot shows the two contact locations I mentioned.

Thanks Roderunner, very well written information. And now I've sorted it! Thank god I'd also done an Acronis backup of my old install before using killdisk. Because although I'd manually saved all my emails and windows live contacts, I hadn't manually saved my windows live/contacts/default folder as I wasn't aware my contacts are in there. Fortunately, the default folder is intact in my backup! I just now copied the 15.5 folder from the backup and replaced the 15.5 folder in windows live/contacts/default. All my contacts showed up as you can see in my screenshot.


So I'm wondering why I had a Windows Live Contacts folder with eight hexadecimal numbered sub folders to transfer from my previous install. Hmm, I think I used to use WLM 2009 and am guessing I must have saved and manually transferred that Windows Live Contacts folder before Windows Live Essentials upgraded me to WLM 2012. I removed the Windows Live Contacts folder just now and my contacts still show up so I'm assuming it's safe to delete the folder, it's not needed anymore?