meltdown

[les]

Sorry for any unanswered mail. My computer has wiped my emails and most other stuff. Doing this on phone. Possibly be some time installing another computer.

[MarkyB]

Get a Gmail account!

[les]

Just bought another computer, I'm back sooner than expected. Sorry!

[JOWETTJAVELIN]

Welcome back.

Hope you haven't bought a Dell laptop, it seems some of them stink of cat pee.

[les]

No I bought an acer, with windows 8, not too keen on this o/s at the moment. I want to keep my original email address but 8 doesn't support pop3 accounts so I need find the screen for entering my email incoming and outgoing details to change to an imap account. This needs to be done on the old computer I think which runs xp. Anyone know how to reach this screen? Please of course!

[Tiny]

Not sure if this is helpful or not, but if you google windows xp mode, there is a free download on the micro-soft website for windows virtual PC.
This creates a virtual XP machine on your windows 8 machine, so should be able to run your e-mail and various other apps you may have that require an older version.

[les]

Thanks Tiny, that may be useful but it gets more involved as my entire outlook express is corrupt so there is nothing on the xp email account to function with.

[MarkyB]

Who is your account with?
What happened to the old PC? There are viruses around that hide your files just by marking them as system and hidden, not too hard to sort out.
Now there are ones that encrypt your files and demand a ransom to get them back, just put your credit card details into some criminals hands, really nasty

There may be a way to run outlook express under windows 8, not easily from a quick search.
A virtual XP machine will do it though.

Find out where outlook express keeps it's files then use a Linux boot CD to recover them.

[les]

My account is with talk talk, and although I'm truly grateful for the advice, some of this stuff is beyond me. In fact it really winds me up. Have you ever nearly thrown the computer out of a window? I 've managed to get back on line and have a new email addy, to keep in touch, but that seems a little iffy at the moment. I've edited my details so hopefully I'll once again get notifications of posts on here.----ps: Still got the old computer, which still boots up, although painfully slow still functions up to a point but email has completely disappeared to the point where it's asking me if I want a tour of the new xp O/S!! before starting.

[Trickydicky]

Les, did your Xp machine come preloaded, ie did you buy it from a retailer and just plug it in when you got home? If it did them most likely it will have a recovery partition and you will be able to restore it to the out of box state. The program to run will be in "all programs" and may describe itself as restore your PC.

[les]

Yes, I've done a partial restore after a load of tinkering and I have got most things back. Thanks for your response.

[bmcecosse]

Yes -as above - there is usually a way to restart the computer in a previous state - not necessarily right back to the beginning. Don't throw it out the window! Someone will be able to sort it all out. I don't understand your problem with 'email' - all my email is held by the provider (Outlook/Hotmail in my case) and not on my computer. I can access it from table computer/laptop/Blackberry/Galaxy tablet and of course my Smart phone ! So access to the email account is not in any way limited to a particular computer. Just go online and log in to your account - it really should be as simple as that - provided you can remember your password of course.......

[Trickydicky]

As Roy says most providers offer webmail to access your emails from different platforms and locations, here is talk talks,
http://www.talktalk.co.uk/mail/?check_cookie=1

[tysonn]

Outlook express stores its files under the .dbx file extension.Do a search on the old machine for files with this extension.They are stored in folders that are hidden by default so you will first of all have to make them available using the (show all files) option .When you find these files save them onto a USB stick.On your new machine running XP virtual machine you can import the files with outlook express which will give you everything back to as it was.There are several free programmes out there that will do this for you if you're unsure.Outlook Express Back Up is one of these.I ran a computer business until I retired and did this regularly.As long as the old hard drive still works you can retrieve all your old data.PM me if you want further help.
Mick

[les]

Thanks Mick, all this info and help is much appreciated. I think I'm getting on top of it now.

[JPX877J]

Windows 8.1 update is out btw

[tysonn]

And theyre feverishly working to replace it.Must go down in history as the biggest mistake since Win ME.