[quote user="Jim Adney"]Problems Migrating Pegasus from XP to Win 10[/quote]

This was a single-user version of Pegasus v4.72.

Okay, with Brian's hint about the protected nature of the Windows program files, I've managed to solve my problem. Here's what I did:

I installed Win 10 on my "new" PC and re-partitioned to give myself separate partitions for OS, applications, page file, and home directories.

Created 3 directories in D:, Program Files, Program Files (x86), and OldApps (for Pegasus, among others.)

Installed a fresh copy of Pegasus v4.72 into D:\OldApps\Internet\Pmail, but did NOT do any network setup.

Opened the new Pegasus and moved the mostly empty mailbox to the location where I wanted it.

Went to my old PC and created a new mail folder into which I transferred ALL my New Mail. That put all my mail into one path/directory.

Copied the entire contents of that directory onto a thumb drive.

On the new PC, I deleted the contents of the (moved) mailbox and replaced it with the contents from the thumb drive.

When I opened Pegasus on the Win 10 PC all my mail was there, but now I had to transfer the "new mail" from its folder to New Mail.

Transferring to New Mail was difficult because there were 3600 messages there, so Pegasus claimed to run out of room after several hundred messages. I got around this by closing the folder I was transferring from and re-opening it. Then I could transfer more. I had to repeat this several times, but each time I did this, more transfers were allowed. I've now gone back and cleaned out about half of those messages.

With the transfers complete, I found that everything I needed was there, except my various Identities. When I started to replace them, I found that this was easier than expected because all the POP3 and SMPT info was still there. So setting up all my identities was just a matter of creating Identity names and selecting POP3 and SMTP servers for each one.

thanks for the help, Brian.

Problems Migrating Pegasus from XP to Win 10

I've been using Pegasus for POP3/SMTP email for over 20 years. I love it and hope to continue to use it for as long as POP3 and SMTP servers exist. I've bought manuals and made donations and I'll continue to do so. It's a really useful program. Many thanks to David Harris and all the people who have worked on this over the years.

Over the years I've moved from PC to PC, moving files and upgrading OSs and PMail versions along the way. That's almost always been easy. Recently I've been trying to move from one PC with XP (32 bit) to a much newer PC with Win 10 (64 bit.) I've been working on this for a couple of weeks, and so far my attempts to migrate Pegasus have failed. I can do a fresh install of Pegasus which seems to work okay, but I want to migrate all my old emails, POP3/SMPT settings, and addressbooks to the new system without losing anything. All my installations are of the latest Pegasus version, 4.72.

This is complicated by the fact that I like to partition my disk into separate partitions for OS (C:), applications (D:), and my Home files (E:), so my old mail is actually in it's own directory on E: under my Home directory. On the old installation, my new mail has stayed behind on the D: partition with the Pmail files; I'd like to figure out how to move them to E:, but one complication at a time.... Both installations are single-user installations, I think, and not Novel related.

Here's what I've been trying: I've done a fresh install of Pegasus on the new system. I check, and this installation seems to work correctly. Then I delete those Pmail files and copy in the files from my old installation, onto the D: and E: partitions. Finally, I go thru the Registry, pmail.ini, and the shortcuts and correct all the paths. This is a lot of work, but I've done this many times and I'm quite comfortable with it.

I double-check everything and then click on the shortcut. The Pegasus splash screen flashes on for a small fraction of a second and then disappears. Nothing else happens. If I check Task Manager, there's no Pmail program running. If I click on the shortcut a second time nothing happens, not even the flicker of the splash screen.


Okay, my questions:

While all the paths in Pmail.ini are clear and easy to fix, the 2 paths in Pmail.cfg are not labeled. What do they point to, and is the position of the second path on the page critical? I've tried to fix them, but I may have guessed wrong about what they mean, or been off a space or 2 in the position of the second one.

Other than pmail.ini and pmail.cfg, are there any other places in the Pegasus files where paths are stored? Can I edit them?

Are there any other places in Windows that I've overlooked?

The fresh install of 4.72 sets up the following shortcut: ...(x86)\Internet\Pmail\Programs\winpm-32 -A. Yes, I added the \Internet\ but Pegasus added the  \Programs\ directory. \Programs\ is the only object in the \Pmail\ directory, so it seems extraneous. I have been eliminating it when I transfer my files, and I've fixed the paths accordingly. Is there some reason for it to be there? And, what is the -A option? (Yeah, I know I should be able to find that myself, sorry....)

FYI: When I transfer my files and fix all the links, my shortcut looks like this: ...(x86)\Internet\Pmail32\winpm-32 -ID "<name>" where <name> is the ID for the POP3/SMPT combination (my identity) that I use most of the time. I switch to others, within the Pegasus program when necessary. All the emails, from whatever ID, go into the same mailboxes and use the same addressbooks.

Would I be better off pasting my email files into their default locations in the new installation, and then worry about moving them later? ISTR that Pegasus managed to move them for me in the past. If so, where does the folder with the old mail go?

Is there a way to verify that my old installation is a single user installation?

Is there a posted diagram of the Pmail-32 directory tree and what files fit where? This was installed a LONG time ago, and I may have tried to do a multiple user install, which never got more than one user. For the sake of simplicity, I'd rather stick with single user mode now.

Sorry if this has all been asked and answered in the past. If so, point me to the conversation.


Comments (to be taken with the usual grain of salt):

Pmail.cfg should have labels, just like Pmail.ini. It would be better if each entry started on a newline, again like Pmail.cfg.

It would be better if the directory containing new mail was named NewMail.

It would be helpful if there were separate folders for settings, addressbooks, and mail folders. Having these all jumbled together makes it hard to decipher. NewMail should just be another of those folders.

Unless there's a good reason to keep it, the \Programs\ directory should be eliminated.

thanks for your thoughtful attention and help,

Jim,

It looks like you have installed Pegasus Mail in \Program Files (x86).  If so, this won't work.  MS changed the game starting with Win7 when they added file protections on both of the \Program Files directories that prevent files in those locations from being modified.  This prevents apps whose configuration files and executables reside in the same directory from working properly.  Pegasus Mail is one of those apps.  I created C:\Apps for these although I chose to let Pegasus Mail install to its default location for ease of troubleshooting.

As for pmail.cfg, it is one of the few files that shouldn't be edited with a text editor.  You would run pconfig32.exe to set those paths.

My suggestions is to start with a clean install (not in a \Program Files directory), create a Pegasus Mail user that matches what you had on the XP machine (leave as Admin if that was the case), then copy only the data files from your old mailbox directory to the new mailbox directory,  There is a whitepaper in the downloads section of this Community sight that was created specifically to help with this.  The direct URL is:  http://community.pmail.com/files/folders/whitepapers/entry41852.aspx.

I believe this approach is easier than trying to change all of the paths in all of the configuration files, especially considering the single user installation.  Creating all new configuration files helps insure no spooks are brought over from the old install.

BTW, startup > splash screen > then nothing is an indication that Pegasus Mail can not locate or access the mailbox directory.  Your configuration is going to require that you insure OS security permissions are set appropriately in all locations where Pegasus Mail content exists.

HTH.  Post back with specific questions once you start wrapping your head around this.

By editing the registry, I've established D:\ as Program Files\ and D:\(x86)\ as Program Files (x86)\. I had assumed this would work in Win 10 as well as it has for me from NT3.5-on. This is my first encounter with 64 bit Windows, so I'm grateful to Brian for the heads-up on the special protected nature of those directories now. Given that new info, I've added a new directory D:\OldApps\ for Pegasus as well as other older software I still want to use. So far, installing Pegasus there seems to be going better, but I'm still no closer to migrating my old files. I tried to give a complete explanation in my first post, but that led to too many complications, so from here on I'm going to try to ask questions one step at a time.

Question: When I run the new installation the first time, I have to choose between 3 options: (1) single user (for when just one person will use the program), (2) multiple user (if there will be more than one user or if one user will use more than one email address), or (3) set up for use on a local network.

When I install for a single user, the first option, I still get the option to set up multiple email addresses and SMTP/POP3 servers. That sounds like option #2. So are the descriptions of the first 3 options misleading?

Question: What can I look for in my old installation that will tell me

if it was a single user installation or a multiple user installation?

thanks,

[quote user="Jim Adney"]When I install for a single user, the first option, I still get the option to set up multiple email addresses and SMTP/POP3 servers. That sounds like option #2. So are the descriptions of the first 3 options misleading?[/quote]

Not misleading considering that a single user can have multiple email accounts (eg: gmail.com, outlook.com, yahoo.com,...) from which to retrieve mail or use its SMTP server.

[quote user="Jim Adney"]Question: What can I look for in my old installation that will tell me

if it was a single user installation or a multiple user installation?[/quote]

Each user gets assigned a mailbox directory so that will tell you if multiple users were created but not whether it was a multi-user install.  I don't know off hand how to tell if the install itself was initially done as multi-user but if the original install goes back as long as you have been using Pegasus Mail then I expect it was multi-user because I think that was the default back then.  FWIW, I always install as multi-user so that I have the flexibility to add a user if I need to and I'm not a fan of the single user install labeling that user as "Admin".  Also, if the user of your previous install was not "Admin" then it would be best to do a multi-user install and create a user that matches that of the previous install.