You will need to consider all the steps needed to transfer your email. With Windows, most people use Outlook and Outlook Express.

In this tutorial, we will help you transfer your Outlook Express emails and address book so that it will work in PClinuxOS. This process is a little complex. I would suggest that you allow yourself about an hour to complete all these steps.

The steps will include:

1. Download & Install Mozilla's email client named Thunderbird while in Windows
2. Import emails and address book from Outlook Express to Thunderbird
3. Export email & address book from Thunderbird to the My Documents folder

The reason why we are doing so many steps to backup your emails is that Outlook Express's export feature doesn't allow us options to export in a format that is recognizable by PClinuxOS. So, what we are doing is transferring our emails to a program, Thunderbird, that can export our emails into a format that is recogniseable by PClinuxOS. 

If you haven't heard of Thunderbird, it is an email program that allows you download and read your emails just like Outlook  Express. The important thing to note is that Thunderbird can run in both MS Windows and PClinuxOS. Let's get started!

Downloading Thunderbird 

First we need to download a copy of Thunderbird to transfer Outlook Express email and addresses. You can download a copy from here, Mozilla Thunderbird. I am assuming your are using Internet Explorer to download Thunderbird.

Click on Download Thunderbird

A window will pop up asking you to Run, Save or Cancel. Choose Save.

The Save As window should now pop open. On the left side of the window you can see a number of icons. Choose 'Desktop' and click 'Save'.

Once you click save,it will download and a Download Complete window may appear (depending on your settings). If so, you can click 'OK'.

Installing Thunderbird 

Minimize all Internet & program windows so that you can see your desktop

Once you can see your desktop, look for the new downloaded Thunderbird Installer program and Double Click it. When you double click the icon a warning like the following may appear. If so, click 'Run'.

After this the Welcoming to Mozilla Thunderbird setup window will appear. Click Next.

Next you will be asked as to what setup you would like. Keep the setting that is already chosen and click next.

Once you have done that the installing process window will appear.

A window that tells you that you finished installing Thunderbird will appear. Click Finish.

If this is your first install of Thunderbird, the following window will appear asking you if you wish to import settings from Outlook Express or Outlook.

Once you choose what will be imported, a new window will appear displaying the transferring of data.

Once it is all setup, Thunderbird will open up and request your password. This password is the one that you received from your email/internet provider.

This is the first part of Outlook Express Backup. Please read on to the next part of Outlook Backup Express continued.