I wonder if Al Pain ever found his old emails?
The default storage folder for Windows Live Mail (the soon to be unsupported Mail App which comes with Windows Live Essentials 2011 and 2012) is C:\Users\<User name>\Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail and Appdata is a hidden folder. If after the upgrade to W10 Al Pain found he had a Windows.old folder or similar on his C: drive, then again he may find that there are a substantial number of files with names he might recognise as part of his email storage within a hidden folder in Windows.old. In that case it would be in C:\Windows.old\Users\<User name>\Appdata\Local\Windows Live Mail or similar. If it is there that's great, but don't touch! You can look, and you will probably recognise sub-folders that have the familiar names of your old email accounts and Local Storage folders, but don't start double-clicking in glee, trying to open any individual files to look at what is inside. Just be glad you found where they are hidden at this stage!
However, it has been over a year, and if Al Pain has made any further significant upgrades, I wonder if these files will have survived. If they have, then it might just be that a fresh install of WLM 2012 which can still be downloaded from Microsoft, albeit unsupported in another 3 months, can be linked to what might be the missing store, but NOT by attempting to use it in situ in Windows.old. If luckily found, that will be the most valuable backup copy in existence and should not be messed with in any way, other than by copying it carefully in its entireity to a second safe location.
Even then, no attempt should be made to open the files and sub-folders found within the Windows Live Mail folder.
It should especially be noted that changing the Store Folder location found in the WLM Maintenance option under File>Options>Mail>Advanced tab will immediately cause any new installation of WLM you may have setup and hope to use, to simply copy its virgin Store Folder to the new location you specify. That's no good if it is trying to copy a blank store over the top of your hard won backupp! You don't want to do that if it you have already placed your newly discovered old mail store in that location - no sooner have you found it, you may be overwriting it with an empty virgin Store Folder!
So I think the trick would be perhaps be to keep your second copy well out of the way and decide whether ultimately you are going to bring the mountain to Mohammed (PBUH) or whether you will send Mohammed (PBUH) to look for the mountain where you have decided you want it!
Either way it'll involve doing some transplant surgery with your new blank installation of WLM by renaming C:\Users\<User name>\Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail folder or wherever you decide the main Store Folder will be (it could be simply D:\Windows Live Mail if you so wished but lets stick with the first option), to something like C:\Users\<User name>\Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail - Empty, and then lastly bringing in (transplanting) a third copy of the full Windows Live Mail folder and untouched contents you hopefully found in Windows.old into the C:\Users\<User name>\Appdata\Local\Microsoft folder to sit alongside the renamed Empty one.
Your new virgin installation of WLM 2012 should of course be closed before you start renaming the Empty folder and transplanting a copy of your discovered old folder.
Sorry if that isn't clear, but maybe the Pros here can indicate if it sounds right and perhaps offer something clearer.
But I cannot emphasise enough that before doing any fiddling with options in WLM or renaming anything, if Al Pain thinks that yes he has found the old mail store in Windows.old, the first thing he does is to very carefully copy it (not move it) to a secure location as a backup.
I am not sure if a fresh install of WLM takes kindly to being force fed a substantial existing folder as a transplant like that, but I have a feeling I did it once before a couple of years ago - perhaps if I was using WLM in XP and moved from XP to Windows 7.
