Windows live mail 2012 contacts incompatible with Windows 7 contacts

[scw2wi]

I have upgraded my Computer from Vista and Windows live mail 2011 to Windows 7 and Windows live mail 2012.

Live Mail 2011 used as Contacts just the Vista Contacts.
Live Mail 2012 is having it's own Contacts which are not compatible with Windows 7 Contacts.

I found a way to import Windows 7 Contacts as Live Mail 2012 Contacts but no way to export it as .contact file again (export can be done as CSV or VCF file only).

Since I still want to synchronize my Windows 7 contacts with an old Vista Computer the Import is not a solution for me.

Is there a way to persuade Live Mail to use the Windows Contacts again
and where are these new Live Mail Contacts saved?

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live\Contacts seems not to be used.

Walter

 

[Roderunner]

Hi Walter, welcome to Seven Forums.

Your best plan is to access your mail account directly, the use .csv format to export / import them into WLM 2012.
If you don't use WLM signed-in they wont be remembered.

 

[scw2wi]

Hi Roderunner,

thanks for your fast answer.

What do you mean with "access your mail account directly"?
I do not know different ways to access my mail account.

What do you mean with WLM signed-in?
Are there Options to use WLM signed-in and not signed-in?

My contacts are in .contacts Format.
I do not Need to Export them to csv Format to get them imported in WLM,
WLM can Import .contacts Format directly, but this is not the way I want to go.

Walter

 

[robinb9]

the best way to sync the two machines is to make a Live Mail Account. On the vista machine where you have WLM sign into this account. On the Windows 7 machine where you have WLM sign into the same account.
Your contacts will go into the live account, now when you update one name or add another, as long as you are signed in to both of them, you will see it on both machines

you can sign up here

https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0&rpsnv=11&ct=1386020836&rver=6.1.6206.0&wp=MBI&wreply=http%3a%2f%2fmail.live.com%2fdefault.aspx&id=64855&cbcxt=mai&snsc=1&bk=1386020837&uiflavor=web&mkt=EN-US&lc=1033&lic=1

 

[scw2wi]

Hi Robinb9

thanks for the tip with Live Mail Account.
I already have a SkyDrive Account (but never used it), so this seems to be the same.
Although it is crazy that I need Internet to synch local Computers.

What Contacts do you mean?
The Problem is that Windows is using different inkompatibel contacts.

On Vista and Windows 7 there are C:\Users\Username\Contacts
In WLM 2011 there are Contacts which are the same like C:\Users\Username\Contacts
In WLM 2012 there are new contacts now which are not C:\Users\Username\Contacts (no idea where they are stored)
And there is a Folder C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live\Contacts
were I do not know which Software is using this Folder.

How can I synchronize all these contacts via SkyDrive or Live Mail?

 

[robinb9]

The contacts in vista are different then the contacts in windows 7
The contacts in vista were associated with windows Mail
Windows mail is not the same as windows live mail
Those contacts on vista synced with the contact folder in vista, WLM does not sync with the contacts folder in windows 7
When windows 7 came to be, microsoft eliminated windows mail
The only way to sync your contacts on both machines is to install windows live mail on both computers
You do it first on the vista machine
When u do it on the vista machine it will automatically pick up all your contacts and emails from windows mail
When you set up a live account, within the program it will ask you if you want to sync your contacts, once you say yes it will put your contacts in wlm, live account
Now you go onto the windows 7 computer and install wlm and sign in with the live account you made
You should see it sync and bring in your contacts
The only way to do this is over the internet
I have 11 computers. I have wlm on all of them, and i have a live account and 5 other but my primary is the live account
When i make a change or add a contact it shows up on all 11 computers

 

[scw2wi]

Thanks a lot for this detailed description.

I understand that WLM 2012 cannot use Windows 7 Contacts any longer although old WLM could.
So it makes no sense to use both Windows Contacts and WLM Contacts because they cannot be synchronized.

I understand that WLM Contacts between different local Computers can only by synchronized via Internet.
That sounds very crazy but seems to be true. (Why can't good things just be kept?)

I have WLM 2012 from Windows Essentials and I have SkyDrive installed.
What I do not understand is the following:

"When you set up a live account, within the program it will ask you if you want to sync your contacts, once you say yes it will put your contacts in wlm, live account"

I have to set up a live account. Is this the same like my SkyDrive account or something different?
Withhin WLM I found a button to connect to WLM. (note: WLM is not WLM)
I pressed this button and connected to my SkyDrive account.
There was no question if I want to Sync my Contacts or something else.
When I look in SkyDrive there are 3 folders: Pictures, Documents, Public. All of them are empty.

What am I doing wrong?

 

[robinb9]

Skydrive ands WlM are totally different. One is an email program , one is a backup program
But, you can have the same login username and password for both
On the top right side in WLM is where you sign in using your live account
That is for email only
The two programs do not sync to each other, again the only thing they have in common is the same live account you set them both up with.
This should not connect to your skydrive account, my WLM does not have a button in it to connect to skydrive

As for skydrive, yes it has folders in it because it is a backup syncing program
You can copy or save a word file in skydrive, and the same file will show up on every device or computer it is installed on. It is just like the program Dropbox

 

[scw2wi]

ok, seems I have made an error and mixed up SkyDrive, WLM from Live Essentials and WLM as on online service.

But I have created only one MS Account and this account is a Live account as well as a SkyDrive account.
Thats the reason why I really cannot see if I am connected to Live or to SkyDrive.

I am pressing this top right button to get connected to my MS account (Live)
but I do not get the question if I want to sync my contacts.

How can I check if my local WLM contacts are synchronized with my Live account?

 

[robinb9]

Sign into windows live mail in the email program
Go into a contacts
Either make a change in one contact or add a new one and make sure you click save
Now open internet explorer
Go to live.com and sign in using your live account
Look at the contacts
I believe in there, it might be called People
Look and see if your changes are there
Or
Sign in on windows live mail on your vista computer (not windows mail)
Look at the contacts, you should see the change there

 

[scw2wi]

I have expected that it will work exactly like that,
the only thing is, I am not able to find the contacts in live.com

I am logged in to https://account.live.com

here I have the following pages.

summarypage: this is an overview about my name, birthday, aliase, password, ...
Notifications: to change the seetings for email and marketing notifications
Permissions: to add and maintain my accounts
billing: this page needs an extra code

On none of these pages I could find any contacts and I could not find any other page.
Are there any other live.com pages than the 4 I have found?

 

[robinb9]

All you need to do is go to Sign In
Put in your username and password
Now look at the picture i put up
Where i circled i want you to click the arrow that liiks like this white down arrow
Then click on people
That is where your contacts are if you followed all my instructions
If you set up the email like i told u in vista your contacts should show up in the web, and on the wlm in windows 7
If not then you need to backup the contacts on the vista machine thru wlm not windows mail and save as a csv file and import them into the web account
Let me know if the first part worked if not i will give you step by step instrctions how to do this

 

[robinb9]

download this pdf- it will explain how to export your contacts and how to sync it through WLM and Live Mail on the web. You should be doing this on your Vista Computer where you installed WLM and it transferred everything over to WLM when it installed
If you did not allow it to transfer everything over you will not see anything in WLM
So in that case you need to uninstall WLM on the Vista Machine and Start all over
When it first installs it will ask you if you want to transfer all your emails and contacts to WLM
You click YES
This is the only way you can get everything over to WLM
I have done it this way on hundreds of Vista Computers when I know my client was purchasing Windows 7
I made them a live account first
then I installed WLM on the Vista Machine and told it to transfer everything over when the message popped up.
Once it did this I did a backup of WLM because they also had pop accounts on it
Then I Installed WLM on Windows 7 and logged into the created live account.
All the emails from the live account came in and so did the contacts
For the pop account I redid their account and put in the backup so they got all their emails from the prior years

Print it out the pdf and read the whole thing

 

[scw2wi]

Thanks a lot for your descriptions, I got it now.

My contacts are in sync with the MS cloud.

I have made the following 2 errors.

1.) When I signed in to live.com I landed on account.live.com and I found no button to navigate to mail.live.com
2.) When I signed in to SkyDrive I did not know about this white arrow to navigate to mails and contacts.

Now everything is working as expected.

There are just 2 disadvantages.

*) My wife and I have to share the same Live account now, otherwise we cannot share the same contacts.
*) We have to stop using the old Windows contacts.

I have found another solution on the web which might avoid these 2 disadvantages.
The only pitty is that I could not follow the steps which are described here.

Making your Windows Live Contacts work with Windows Contacts

According to this description there shall be a solution to sync the WLM contacts with the Windows contacts.
If this is true, it would be the perfect solution to share only contacts without need to share the hole account.

Walter

 

[robinb9]

actually there is a solution for your wife
Take the contact.csv file you created from the instructions on the pdf I gave you
If you did not do this then follow my pdf and it will show you how to make it.
Now go to live.com and create a username and password for her
Once you have created this, go to mail.live.com, log in with her username and password
Now follow my instructions on the pdf on how to put the contacts into the online Windows Live Mail
Next:
In Windows 7, make another user account- it is your choice to give her administrative rights or not
Give her a Name and a password- this is for the Computer only
On this new side WLM will be in the Start Menu
Open it and put in the username and password you created for her new Live Account
It will bring in all the contacts
Now she has her own mail and her own email address too
She also has her own side
It is like having 2 computers in one!

Also if you are telling me she is the one using the Vista Computer
You can make her own User Account in there also
Once you have made the account
you can follow what I put above for the Windows 7 one