Express email is stored in a set of dbx files in a subdirectory of Documents and Settings. You can find the exact location where they are stored by opening Outlook Express and clicking Tools, Options, Maintenance, Store Folder. Within the folder given above, you’ll find a number of dbx files like Folders.dbx, Inbox.dbx, Outbox.dbx, etc. Back them all up to create a copy of every email currently stored in Outlook Express.

To restore the email, copy the backup files to a directory on the target machine and make sure they don’t have the Read Only attribute set. Open Outlook Express on the target machine. Click File, Import, Messages, Microsoft Outlook Express 6 and follow the prompts to import your messages from the backup directory.