Restoring lost Thunderbird emails and accounts

[SRDL]

I guess my situation is similar to DVB's except it wasn't a hard disk crash. It was the Microsoft "Creators' update, which deleted 115 "apps" - the name Microsoft for the collection of installed software (including Firefox and Thunderbird, TurboTax, Adobe Acrobat Reader, etc. as well as my printers, and Visual C++ library stuff. On the positive side, they did put AppData stuff in a directory called C:\Windows.old". So, I was hoping to be able to:
(1) Install Thunderbird.
(2) copy the profile from where Microsoft put it. I assume the "Profile" is the directory with the "random" name and a file type of "default" (e.g.Na7tj5b.default on my system, if I copied the name right) and its subdirectories. next to the one install creates.
(3) Tell Thunderbird to use it. I assume there is a (".ini" file somewhere)

Will that work? if so, where is that ".ini" file?

BTW, at one point, I found some files that looked like they were for the email messages for each email address. I looked for them again, but couldn't find them. It looks like some of the files are hidden, but I did set File Explorer to show hidden files.

Thanks.
Rich (handle SRDL)

[DanRaisch]

I guess my situation is similar to DVB's

Except for the fact that "his" occurred six years ago. I've split your post off from its original location because of the age of that thread.

Under Win 10 the default location for a Thunderbird installation would be C:\Users\<Windows user name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\<Profile name>\ That <Profile name> would be a random string like the Na7tj5b.default value you found.

You would not copy the old directory information "next to" the one created by the installation of Thunderbird. but would instead replace that new profile with the old one. See this thread --
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_ ... hunderbird
For a concise, less detailed version of the process, see this thread --
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 5#p7251375

For an alternative approach, see tanstaafl's posts in this thread -- http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... #p14209121

[SRDL]

Sorry about that. I was looking at a lot of posts as a result of the damage I had from Microsoft's "Creators update". I had a number of tabs open, and I composed my append in Word. Then I copy/pasted it, evidently to the wrong tab. I had intended it to direct it to a thread starting "Posted 25 Oct 2017 06:31 am".

In any case, thanks for your append, including the additional links. I think I am almost ready to try to recover. I had been looking at the "Local" branch of the chain of folders, instead of the "Roaming" path. That's why I couldn't find the emails themselves.