Export messages fails using Windows Live Mail 16.4.3528.0331 on Windows 8.1

Anonymous
2016-02-12T21:45:50+00:00

I am using Windows Live Mail Application Version 2012 (Build 16.4.3528.0331) on a Windows 8.1 laptop.

I am buying a new laptop which will come with Windows 10.  I am trying to export the emails from two of the three accounts I have in the current application to back them up and to hopefully import to the Windows 10 email application.  (The third account is a web based account so it does not need to be backed up locally.)  I want to keep the communications on my local computer and back up drives.  

I am following the Microsoft directions for exporting the emails from the application.  Although I had no problems exporting the contact files from the application, I am not able to export the emails.  A couple of different things have happened.

1 - At first I received a message indicating the data had been exported, but when I went to the folder to which it should have gone, the folder was empty.  (I tried this several times.)

2 - Then I was able to get as far in the process as browsing to find the folder I wanted to put the emails in, I was able to select the folders I wished to export, I was able to click on "next" and a split second later (way too short a period of time for the number of emails involved) to click on "finish." None of the emails were exported to the new file.

3 - I repeated the process as in step 2 above twice and instead of attempting to export only selected files, I attempted to export all files.  I had the same results - no emails were exported or in one case only one draft email was exported.

I feel confident I am following Microsoft's directions for this process as depicted in their Microsoft Essentials part of their website.  Would appreciate some advice.  I know I can simply copy the files from the section on my hard drive where they are stored.  My concern about using that approach is that importing them to the Windows 10 email application may not work.

Windows for home | Other | Email and communications

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-03-12T15:18:02+00:00

    Thank God for your post firedog. I am so sick and tired of microsoft jamming "important" updates on us that constantly break things! For what it is worth, I was able to get my WLM Message export to work perfect by removing only the following updates:  3127222 and 3126593. Irritating problem is even though I "hide" these updates, they persistently present as new updates to install every time I check for updates. Frickin Microsoft!!! How to prevent these updates from continually showing up again and again? Also, SOOOO sick of the windows 10 update icon coming back. I deleted them months ago but sneaky MS reintroduced them AGAIN recently! ****! If I want to upgrade to Win 10 i will. Geez. Problem is my Lenovo Y510P not compatible. Verified this with intense research and numerous phone calls to Lenovo and Intel. LOL I'm ready for a damn Macbook pro like the entire rest of my family. Anyway, thanks again. If you have an idea as to how to prevent these updates from showing up again and again as "new" important updates I'm all ears. Staff (many) and MS have been completely useless. Surprise!!!

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-03-12T11:25:05+00:00

    I merged your question into a thread where a number of users have reported the same problem. As you'll see if you read through the thread, there's no known solution at this stage, except to use other methods to back up your mail folders. Simply copying the store folder may be the simplest.

    The fault seems only to arise on Windows 8.1 with security update KB3126593 installed. I can't recommend uninstalling the update to correct it, though, because it involves the security of Windows itself.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-03-11T23:21:13+00:00

    As I said in one of my posts of 28 February, I copy

    C:\Users<my_user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail

    to backup my mail until Microsoft get round to doing a proper fix. I'm not holding my breath though.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-03-11T23:08:44+00:00

    From time to time I do backup of all messages. Due to unknown reasons the program says that the export is completed after 1 sec. despite I have > 10GB database in the Live folder. Before I took up to 10 minutes to complete. Is there a manual way to restore WL?

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-03-11T19:18:33+00:00

    I was hoping that the next Windows update would fix this.

    There has been 28 updates in the last few days - but it still doesn't work.

    What do we have to do to get Microsoft to fix this?

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