Windows Vista includes a backup and restore feature for your email messages and contacts. This article will show you how to use this feature to back up your messages and contacts, and then restore them if something happens to your computer. To use the backup and restore feature, first open Windows Vista’s Mail program. (You can find it in the Start menu under Programs or in the All Programs list.) Next, click the File tab, and then click Backup. The Backup dialog box appears. In the Backup location field, type a location where you want to save your backups. (You can also choose to make daily backups.) Click OK. Windows Vista now begins making daily backups of your email messages and contacts. (If you want to make more extensive backups, such as of all of your mail messages or all of your contact information, you can do so by clicking the More Options button and then selecting one or more of these options.) If something happens that causes you to lose access to your computer, you can restore your backed-up files by using Windows Vista’s Restore feature. To do so, first open Windows Vista’s Recovery Console by booting into Safe Mode with Networking (by pressing F8 during startup), clicking Repair Your Computer on the Advanced Boot Options screen that appears, and then selecting Restore from the list of options that appears. ..
Backup Messages
Open up Windows Mail and go to File \ Export \ Messages.
Select “Microsoft Windows Mail” and hit next.
Browse to a location to store the messages and label it something that will let you know what it is.
Next you can choose to backup all folders, or hold the Ctrl key and click each folder you want to backup.
That’s all there is to it, click finish to close out of Windows Mail Export.
Backup Contacts
The process to backup email contacts is relatively the same. Click on File \ Export \ Windows Contacts.
Select the format you want to save the contacts as.
Select the fields you want to export with the file.
Restoring Contacts and Messages
If you need to transfer the data to another machine or from a reformat restoring the Contacts and Messages is a simple import process.
Windows 7 no longer includes a mail client but you can download Windows Live Mail which is part of the Live Essentials suite. The process is the same in Live Mail too, just follow the import wizard and point it to the backed up contacts and message files.
To be safe you might want to backup your contacts and messages in Windows Mail before going through the upgrade process. Of course you can use this method to backup your mail at any time to a flash drive or CD stored in a safe place.
