Converting VMS Mail to Microsoft Internet Mail

Suppose you have a MAIL.MAI file under VMS, and you want to convert it to Microsoft Internet Mail under Windows'95 or Windows/NT. How do you procede? You can use the prescription below, which is in several steps. You will end up with all your VMS folders as folders in Microsoft Internet Mail, with the dates preserved, as well as the Email addresses of your correspondents. The procedure involves first converting the VMS mail file into Eudora format using a program I supply, and then converting the Eudora files into Microsoft format using a freeware program from Slipstick Systems.

1. Log into the VMS machine where you have your mail, and create a temporary directory:
   • $ create/dir [.mailtemp]
2. Enter the directory, and download the zipped VMS2EUD.ZIP executable (for Alpha). Alternatively, extract the VMS2EUD.FOR source and compile and link it. An HTML-version of the source is also available. This program reads your MAIL.MAI file, and converts it into Eudora .mbx files, one for each folder you have.
3. Run the VMS2EUD program, converting your mail into the Eudora .mbx files. Here is an example session running the converter.
4. At this stage you may want to delete the wastebasket.mbx file, and any other folder files you don't want to convert.
5. Now log into the Windows PC, open up a DOS box, create and move into a temporary directory:
   • mkdir \mailtemp
   • cd \mailtmp
6. FTP from this directory to the VMS machine, set mode ASCII, and mget all the .mbx files (it is important to set mode ASCII so that the text files are transferred correctly):
   • ftp vms
   • …
   • cd [.mailtemp]
   • ascii
   • prompt off
   • mget *.mbx
7. Now ftp the EUD2IEM program from Slipstick Systems (which is freeware). This program converts Eudora mailboxes into Microsoft Internet Mail. Follow the instructions they provide, and you are all set!

The VMS2EUD program was written with users of the VXCERN VMS system in mind: it does some massaging of DECnet Email addresses accordingly. If you are converting mail on a different system, you may need to modify the source code so that it converts the addresses somewhat differently.

You can find information on converting Eudora mail into other mail agent formats here. Good luck!

Julian J. Bunn