Retrieving old e-mails from a Vista machine

[AKHandyman]

A customer of mine has tried to retrieve his old emails (Windows Mail -Vista) from a hard drive that was no longer booting up. I can get into the app data of his old user account and I see the Windows mail folders. The question is how do I get those emails into a new Thunderbird account? I can't seem to see where TB imports Windows Mail. Am I missing something here?

[jwitalka]

From;http://kb.mozillazine.org/Importing_and_exporting_your_mail
Windows Mail (aka Windows Live Mail)

• Import to Thunderbird:Windows mail stores the messages as .EML files. They are normally stored within the C:\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail directory. If you can't find them look in the Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Maintenance -> Store Folder to find where Windows Mail stored them. The best way to import .EML files is with the ImportExportTools add-on, it lets you import all of the .EML files in a directory in one step using "Tools -> ImportExportTools -> Import all eml files from a directory". However, if you only have a few .EML files you could drag and drop them from Windows Explorer to a folder in Thunderbird instead.
  Export the contacts using the Windows Contacts program as a .csv file. You can import it using Tools -> Import -> Address books -> Text Files. See this article for more information about how to export the contacts.