Problems with Outlook Express - emails lost dbx corruption

In the light of the enthusiasm shown for my post relating to the OCX control that must not be named (and probably Microsoft's most embarrassing error of recent years) I thought I would write someting about Outlook Express.

Outlook Express is the email client that comes as part of windows. I use it myself, although I have my emails filtered through a spam filter of my own devising written in java. It takes email off a number of servers using POP3 (Post Office Protocol TCP Port 110) and sends it using SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol port 25).

I have recently spent a few hours dealing with the problem that arises when .dbx files get corrupted during compacting.

Outlook Express (OE) stores the emails (and other things) in files with the suffix .dbx. Each folder has its own .dbx file. They are stored in hidden directories. This makes it harder to deal with things when OE goes wrong.

It is very important to back up your stored *.dbx files as otherwise if you have a disk crash/stolen computer/tea poured on computer incident you lose all of your emails.

First find your *.dbx files.
Mine are found in the sub-directory
C:\Documents and Settings\John\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{0B53F3EF-CFCE-40F2-934F-131F23CA22FA}\Microsoft\Outlook Express

This can vary from computer to computer (depending upon settings in the registry), but you will normally find that the last bits are \Microsoft\Outlook Express.

Then you find a load of .dbx files and also a folders.dbx file.

Outlook Express is quite kind. If the folders.dbx file is missing it will build it again from the other folders. Reconstructing an OE database can finish off with deleting that file and allowing OE to rebuild it. It does, however, lose the structure of any subfolders and make all folders part of the local folders structure.

Now and again OE tries to compact folders. This is where my trouble arose. I found that OE had managed to fill the data part of some folders with 0x00 (ie Ascii 0). This is almost certainly a weird and wonderful bug that M$ have not yet found. A 25 Mb *.dbx file full of 0x00 is no use to anyone.

This means that the programs you can get to repair OE files (there are a number) by extracting the emails would not work, because there was no information to be recovered.

Luckily, however, OE when compact stops stores *.bak files in the recycler. It is, therefore, possible to restore those (they are simply copies of the *.dbx files). Then to rename the corrupted *.dbx files (you can tell because they don't appear in the folder list) to something else and then to rename the *.bak files.

This is not something to do if you don't really understand what you are doing and check each step of the way as a number of irrevocable things are done. Hence make a back up before starting and keep careful track of what you do. If you don't understand what I am writing about ask someone who does to recover your emails for you (if they are recoverable). This is not something for novices to try.

Ideally you can go to your most recent backup. However, if you don't know where the files are (see above) you probably haven't backed them up.