christ1 said

Can you post the contents of the file profiles.ini for both Windows accounts?

I thought that I did! See my answer on 2/3/15. Is that not what you wanted?

You did post screenshots of Windows Explorer with the contents of your profile(s) - the old and the new one.

From there, if you go up one level in the folder hierarchy there should be a file profiles.ini. It's a text file, which tells Thunderbird where to look for the profile folder. Please post the contents of the file profiles.ini files for both Windows accounts.

Hope this is what you mean; John is the first one and john-john the second

It looks like you'd still need to go up another level. I'm looking for the contents of the profiles.ini file(s). There is no real need to post screenshots in this case. You can paste the contents into your reply.

OK, this is probably what you want? first is John or old. Second is john-john or new. Hope this is what you are looking for!

Yes, thanks. Close Thunderbird. Now, in the file C:\users\john.john-pc\appdata\roaming\thunderbird\profiles.ini replace

IsRelative=1 Path=Profiles/isq2krng.default

with

IsRelative=0 Path=C:\Users\John\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\wmekpsyz.default

That points Thunderbird to start with the old profile. Save the file, and start Thunderbird. You should now see all your mail and contacts.

I've edited the above post a couple of times. It should be ok now. Apologies, if this caused any confusion.

Well, I must have screwed something up! I got out of Internet Explorer and thought I had shut down Thunderbird when I did so. I changed the settings as suggested but when I tried to restart Thunderbird I got the following: Thunderbird is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Thunderbird process, or restart your system. I shut down the computer and got the same message again when I tried to start Thunderbird. I then decided to change it back to the way it was and am still getting the same error message!! I am writing this in my from my servers email as I now can't get into thunderbird at all.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_in_use

Ya, well, I was there for awhile trying to figure out what I could do next and did the control alt delete thing to stop running Thunderbird but I get the same error message even though it isn't showing up in task manager now. I may be on my way to Staples or Best Buy to see if they can help me. Getting very frustrated with myself! I should have also indicated I went into safe mode and ran error check on the c drive on start up. That has not done me any good either.

From your last post I have no idea whether you read (and understood) the article linked above.

I understood bits and pieces of it. I did what I could but just got back from Staples and after about 20 minutes, the tech guy has got me up and running again. Thank you for all of your time and help. I am not sure how to close out this thread properly and wish I could tell you exactly what he did to resolve the issue. One thing he did was to completely uninstall Thunderbird and then reinstalled and copied the old profile file over to the new installation. Hope that makes sense. Thanks again.

after about 20 minutes, the tech guy has got me up and running again.

Congratulations.

I am not sure how to close out this thread properly

Please mark the thread as 'Solved'. Thank you.

One thing he did was to completely uninstall Thunderbird and then reinstalled

You've been using an ancient version of Thunderbird. Bringing up your Tunderbird to the recent version would have been the next step.

copied the old profile file over to the new installation.

That's what I've been trying to explain from the beginning. I'm still not sure why this was so difficult. At least you've been close. In any case, things are more difficult to explain remotely.

For the future, keep your Thunderbird up to date and make sure to create backups of your profile on a regular basis. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Backing_Up_and_Restoring