opening dbx files

[janela]

Help all you techies out there. I have copied all of my outlook express files onto a disc by way of backup but cannot open them, the box that comes up says that windows cannot open this file as it needs to know what programme created it. I just simply copied these files to the disc drive then wrote them to the disc,how am I supposed to know what programme created the file, surely the operating system is supposed to know this. Or am I crediting computers with more brains than they actually have. I have tried using the usual word processing programmes wordpad brings some of the text up but interspersed all through with unintelligible characters and gobbledegook.

[mattie]

They are created by Outlook Express, and can either be opened by OE or imported into another mail program - e.g Windows Vista's Windows Mail.

You only really need to back them up if you are transferring to another PC, as they are constantly changing, so you would be backing them up all the time.