Formatting Vista & backup question

[L.o.D.]

My mother's Vista machine is limping along for some reason, so I may as well format it & put Win7 on it.
Now, what files do I need to backup to my 4GB flash drive to save her windows live mail contacts & all her firefox bookmarks?

I tried running malwarebytes but it didn't help.
It's been fine for the past year now-ish?
It's a Q6600 system with 2GBs of RAM & a 7600 GT.
All she does with it is email & some golf site.

[Stringbean]

Firefox bookmarks and windows live mail contacts both have the option of exporting to a file (in firefox, go to "organize bookmarks"), which you can then save. Windows live mail can export contact lists as either 'business card' or 'comma separated value' formats (not entirely sure what the difference is between them...).

For the e-mails themselves, you can go into the windows live mail options screen, go to the maintenance tab, and click the "store folder" button. This will display the current directory where e-mails are being stored. Back up that directory.

I normally change the store folder so it is not on the system partition. That way if I nuke windows, my e-mails are still safe, and I can point the e-mail to that directory again after re-installing.

I'd give a more detailed description, but I'm at work, and don't have windows live mail installed on this machine.


After backing up her stuff....you could try using system restore to set the machine back to when Windows was first installed (or any other time that it was working normally). Might save you some time if it works...Though a clean install every now and then is best for keeping a machine running smoothly anyways.

PS: Don't forget to back-up her desktop files. I hate it when I format my windows drive, then remember that I had stuff on my desktop that I forgot to back up.