How do I reinstate damaged Outlook Express identity

usignuolo

My husband and I have separate PCs on a home network but for historical reasons, our email arrives on his PC where we have a family identity, but our own names and passwords. I use Outlook Express (he uses Outlook).

Yesterday he was running low on space and decided to delete some temporary files. Somehow, he does not know how, he deleted my OE identity. My emails seem to still be there (I can find them as .dbx files on the PC and so is my address book). But I cannot use OE so I cannot access or read them. When I try to open OE I get an error message of "no identity".

I don't know how to set up a new one and connnect the old emails to it. . This is a disaster for me as I have a lot of my work in attachments to emails and was in the middle of a current project when this happened.

Anyone got any suggestions?

BTW We are running XP but I can't find any system restore points. He seems to have deleted them, probably turned off the Restore. I also had a utility on the PC which did clean ups periodically and kept its own restore points. He also deleted that and all its restore points. He doesn't know how.

5bellies_2

The dbx files mean your mail is still there. Create a backup of them in a different folder just in case.

How far can you get into Outlook Express? What is the exact error message?

usignuolo

Well there is no desk top icon, they have all vanished. When I try to connect via OE in the Programs section, it brings up a small box called "Identity Login". This says "There is no current identity. Select your identity name below...." - however the box from which to select it is also blank.There are also "Logoff Identity" and "Manage Identities" tabs below this. The Log off clicks onto two options, yes or no. The Manage Identities tab clicks onto an empty box where there should presumably be some identity information.

I am nervous that if I delete the corrupted identity (if I can find out how to do so) or set up a new one with the same attributes as the old one, I will lose my emails.

Honeyrose

5bellies_2

Making a second copy of the dbx files, and the address book, will eliminate the worry of losing the emails.

If you can, delete the corrupt identity and create a new one, then use the import function to put the emails and address book back in.