Robin Clay said:
1. COPY that whole "new" set onto an external drive
2. COPY the "old" in its place
3. Fire up LivMail
4. Export the AddressBook
5. Check the .CSV file
6. Close LiveMail
7. COPY the "new" back
8. ReBoot.

I wouldn't put it past MicroSoft to install a trigger if I make changes, a trigger that will create the boot-up problem I currently have....
Hopefully the new version of WLM is the same as the old version. In that case I would just swap the contacts.edb file, fire up live mail, stopping at step #3. At that point check the "Contacts" window within WLM to see if it looks OK. You would only be messing with the "App Data" folder, not the "Windows" or "Programs" folders, so it shouldn't make the computer have boot problems. Although I haven't done this in a long time, I suspect that if you drag your saved contacts.edb file on top of the new empty one, Windows will simply ask if you're sure you want to replace one with the other, so just say yes. I'm pretty sure Microsoft never purposely creates boot problems, it only seems like it sometimes. If you really are having boot problems, I'd deal with that first, rather than add any new programs.

IIRC, there may be up to 3 files named contacts.edb, in different folders, so it's wise to do 3 separate swaps, one for each folder, under the assumption that the 3 contacts.edb folders are not identical to each other. In fact they probably are not since the "signed-in" contacts list is completely different from the "not-signed-in" list, in order to allow for the two different modes of operation. Within "options/connections tab" there are two buttons "sign in" and "stop signing in" which would let you switch between the two modes of operation.