How to use Outlook Express files in Puppy?

Message

jhecht · #1 Post by **jhecht** » Sun 12 Jul 2015, 14:24

Hi all - I have an older end user (EU) who is running Win XP on an antique computer w/a 900 Mhz CPU and 1 GB of ram (shudder). He uses Outlook Express for email, so all his email files are *.dbx extensions.

He's an ideal candidate for a Puppy Linux wipe-n-reload, but how do I deal with his *.dbx email files? He's retired, and on a limited budget, so a new computer is not an optimal solution. Many thanks in advance for your help!

Burn_IT · #2 Post by **Burn_IT** » Sun 12 Jul 2015, 14:35

It is not want you want to hear, but leave him on XP.
Fully patched and up to date he is not going to get any more nasties that he would being a naive user of Linux and any new mail system.
Just make sure that he has anti-virus and firewall up to date.

If you really insist on him using Linux, set up OE under Wine.

mikeb · #3 Post by **mikeb** » Sun 12 Jul 2015, 16:29

Been several years but such as seamonkey or thunderbird has import options.... indeed it asks you on a first run.

Not sure of the mechanics but since outlook express is still the no 1 virus gateway you could try installing thunderbird on windows and if it imports ok then you have a ready made profile you could clone to linux.

I also think its good idea to introduce open source software on windows so the user becomes familiar before the full jump to linux...or dual boot .
So add firefox or similar too.... again for malware reasons you would be doing them a favour even if they never end up using linux.

By the way I am typing this on a pentium 3 with 512MB ram... seems happy on linux and windows...

mike

jhecht · #4 Post by **jhecht** » Mon 13 Jul 2015, 04:04

Burn_IT wrote:It is not want you want to hear, but leave him on XP.
Fully patched and up to date he is not going to get any more nasties that he would being a naive user of Linux and any new mail system...

Well - I'm a pragmatist, not an open source zealot - but in the 15 years I've been using Linux, I've never had >any< malware problems.

Burn_IT wrote:If you really insist on him using Linux, set up OE under Wine.

The only thing I insist on is that my customers pay me. If he wants to stay on Win XP and pay me to keep it (sort of) running, that's fine. More $$$ for me.

The real problem is that the guy is 72, and highly resistant to even >trying< anything new. I offered to boot his computer from a live CD as a test for free, if he would bring it to me. His answer was a resounding NO!

And even though I showed him how to do a defragmentation over two years ago, he never bothered to do it. When I finally got him to defrag, his drive was over 90% fragmented. It took 2.5 hours for a tiny HD.

His computer runs like a snail in molasses on a freezing day in January - but since he never uses any other computer, he has no basis for comparison.

Some people are inherently self-defeating - and you can't change them...

mikeb · #5 Post by **mikeb** » Mon 13 Jul 2015, 09:02

Well what can you do...If he wants to continue using virus friendly software that's up to him...you will get some money each time you have to clear it out. For someone like him I would simply sanitise windows but he seems resistant to even that.
People still get heart disease even though the causes have been known about for decades....

so topic closed then?

mike

jafadmin · #6 Post by **jafadmin** » Mon 13 Jul 2015, 11:08

In these situations I often use Clonezilla to convert their XP machines to a VM.

Burn_IT · #7 Post by **Burn_IT** » Mon 13 Jul 2015, 15:15

Isn't that just adding a further overhead??

jhecht · #8 Post by **jhecht** » Tue 14 Jul 2015, 12:02

Burn_IT wrote:Isn't that just adding a further overhead??

I think I agree. Occam's Razor applies to IT as well. What's the advantage of the VM?

Jose A. Senna · #9 Post by **Jose A. Senna** » Tue 24 Oct 2017, 01:36

This thread has drifted into a "keep Win XP vs. move to Linux"
discussion.
I have nothing against such discussion, but would like to know
whether one can import Outlook Express files into SeaMonkey.
I know how, and already did, import IE history files, but don't
know any way to do the same to OE .dbx files.

Jose A. Senna · #10 Post by **Jose A. Senna** » Tue 24 Oct 2017, 02:32

In the above post, where I said
"IE history files"
I should have said
"IE bookmark files"

dancytron · #11 Post by **dancytron** » Tue 24 Oct 2017, 03:44

See here. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Import_from_Outlook_Express

I'd try to install thunderbird in Puppy and see if it will import them. If that didn't work, I'd install thunderbird in Windows, import the Outlook Express files (which I am 98% sure will work), then export the from Windows Thunderbird, and try to import that into either Thunderbird or Seamonkey.

Mike Walsh · #12 Post by **Mike Walsh** » Tue 24 Oct 2017, 10:52

dancytron wrote:See here. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Import_from_Outlook_Express

I'd try to install thunderbird in Puppy and see if it will import them. If that didn't work, I'd install thunderbird in Windows, import the Outlook Express files (which I am 98% sure will work), then export the from Windows Thunderbird, and try to import that into either Thunderbird or Seamonkey.

Doesn't the Windoze version of T-Bird use a different type of extension to the Linux version? Just curious about this, TBH.....but that's what I've gleaned over the years.

Mike.

jafadmin · #13 Post by **jafadmin** » Tue 24 Oct 2017, 21:11

You can export OE emails to a folder using drag/drop. It will create individual emails with a ".eml" extension using the the email's subject as the file name.

The ".eml" files can then be imported into Thunderbird.

Jose A. Senna · #14 Post by **Jose A. Senna** » Tue 07 Nov 2017, 23:17

i found a free Windows command line program named dbxconv
that can convert a .dbx file to a .mbx file or to a folder of .eml files.
The latter allows viewing the messages in SeaMonkey, but is
a batch process, not a way to provide random access of
SeaMonkey to .dbx files.
BTW, SeaMonkey seems to save messages in .eml
format, but merges all messages in a single file. Is this so?

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How to use Outlook Express files in Puppy?

How to use Outlook Express files in Puppy?