I have paid msn Butterfly program. how to install on new PC?

Question

I have paid msn Butterfly program. how to install on new PC?

H T 0

purchased a new PC. My old MSN premium butterfly did not get reinstalled by the store. How do i get it back since i do have a paid membership. My main concern is preserving all the emails saved back to the 90'sI

Chloe-V 13,030 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-26T13:10:06.69+00:00

Hi H T,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

You can refer to Q&A Assist’s answer above. If anything is still unclear or you run into difficulty at any step, please reply here and I will add more guidance.

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1 answer

Your answer

Chloe-V 13,030 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-26T13:10:06.69+00:00

Hi H T,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

You can refer to Q&A Assist’s answer above. If anything is still unclear or you run into difficulty at any step, please reply here and I will add more guidance.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Answer 1

To use MSN Premium (MSN Explorer “butterfly”) on a new PC and preserve old mail, there are two parts: reinstalling MSN Explorer and restoring any email that was stored locally on the old computer.

Because the new PC is already set up, focus on getting MSN Explorer installed (through MSN support or the MSN download associated with the paid membership) and then restoring any backup of local mail you may have from the old machine.

If the old PC is still available or you have a backup from it, use these steps to preserve and restore locally stored MSN email:

On the old PC (before it is wiped or discarded), back up MSN email:
1. Open MSN Explorer.
2. Select Help & Settings at the top.
3. Select Settings.
4. Select Change your e-mail settings.
5. Select Import or export e-mail, copy e-mail, or import contacts.
6. In the MSN copy email dialog, select Copy e-mail, then Next.
7. Select Save your MSN email stored on this computer, then Next.
8. Note the path where the backup will be saved, or select Browse and choose a location such as Desktop or an external drive (USB/thumb drive, external hard drive, or a OneDrive folder).
9. Select Next, then Done.
Copy that backup folder/file to external storage (USB drive, external disk) or to cloud storage so it can be moved to the new PC.
On the new PC, after MSN Explorer is installed and signed in with the same paid MSN account, restore the saved email:
1. Copy the backed‑up MSN email folder/file from the USB/external drive or cloud storage onto the new PC.
2. Open MSN Explorer.
3. Select Help & Settings → Settings.
4. Select Change your e-mail settings → Import or export e-mail, copy e-mail, or import contacts.
5. Select Copy e-mail, then Next.
6. Select Open your saved MSN email, then Next.
7. The default path will appear; if your backup is in a different location, select Browse and point to the folder/file you copied from the old PC.
8. Select Next, then Done.

This restores the locally stored MSN email (including older mail) that was backed up from the old computer. For messages that were always kept on the server (Inbox on the MSN/Outlook.com account), signing into MSN Explorer with the same account on the new PC will resync them automatically.

If there is no backup and the old PC is gone or wiped, only messages still stored on the MSN/Outlook.com server will be available; locally stored mail that was never backed up cannot be recovered using these steps.

References:

MSN Explorer: How to backup or restore email