Accidently deleted outlook express identity, help!

Hello XP'ers,

I use an old laptop running Win XP and MS Outlook Express for emails, and I accidently deleted one of my Outlook Express identities.

I noticed that the email files are now moved to my Recycle Bin as bak files.

As a test, I restored one of the email bak folders and perhaps it did restore, but the Outlook Express identity did not reappear so I cannot confirm where the restored email file is or how to access it.

I guess I could simply restore all the email files from the recycle bin while noting the directory they restored to, but what would I do next to get MS Outlook Express to see them?

Should I make another identity identical to the one I deleted so that when I restore the email bak folders from the recycle bin, they will then reappear?

 

have you tried to rename the file without the .bak extension?