Problem with Win10 mail program & TB

[rgh43]

I just re-formatted my HD & installed Win10.

I use Thunderbird for my e mail program and I have or I had some stored e mails on my backup HD that would open with Thunderbird just fine.
Just a bit ago I went to look at an old e mail on the backup HD about Classic Shell that I had saved on the backup HD. Up popped a box and I must have accidentally hit the icon for Microsoft’s recommended e mail program. So all the logos now have changed to the MS e mail little blue envelope icon and will only open with that program. I then went and made TB the default after the fact and it shows as the default but I think Win10 would change the logos back so when I open and old e mail it will only open with TB. All the old e mail I have in my backup HD shows the mail Win10 mail icon & will only open with that mail program. How can I get it to change back to my Mozilla Thunderbird program? Now the Mozilla TB program is installed and operating correctly with all current & new e mails that come into it are OK, so this did not effect my normal e mail flow just the old saved e mail on the backup HD. Any way to correct this? Since I now made TB the default I cant even forward them to my g mail account. I suppose I could change the default back to the Win10 mail, try to forward all and then change the default back to TB but that would be a lot of work?

[DanRaisch]

In what file format are those old email stored? Are they .eml files? If so what you need to do is use Win 10's settings dialogue to "Choose default apps by file type" and tell the operating system to open .eml files with Thunderbird.

[rgh43]

Dan, Yes they are eml files and I did what you suggested and that solved the problem, with Win7 I could just change the default and all would work OK but then Win 7 didn't have its own e mail program as Win10 has. This seems to be one of the frustrating things about Win10, all the tweaks you need to do to even get it close to Win7. Another issue in Win 10 solved. Thanks again for the help.

[DanRaisch]

You're welcome.