How do I import my old Favorites from IE6 to IE8?

You can just copy the entire Favorites Folder from your original profile to any new profile you create...  Import / Export does not really do much except copy them in the first place...  Just make sure that you copy it to the right location:  c:\Documents and Settings\*userprofile*  

As pictured here:

I usually use the import/export feature. export your existing list of favourites as an .htm file, then import it into your new browser.

Synchronize your Bookmarks and Favorites using the free Xmarks add-on:
http://www.xmarks.com/
Used to be called Foxmarks and was for Firefox only. Now works with and between IE, Firefox and Safari.
Install on as many machines and as many browsers as you wish and they all stay in synch.

Wouldn't be without it.

:)

How do I import my old Favorites from IE6 to IE8?
**The import facility should work fine.
When I try the Import utility in IE8, it automatically types .../bookmarks as file name.
But the filename should be Favorites, shouldn't it?
**No, when you export from IE6 it will create a bookmarks.htm file
I have even copied the Favorites-image (the yellow star) to My documents where it
usually is located. But it does not work.
**Not sure what you mean by the image.  You are looking for the files under the icon.
What should I do?
**
I have Windows XP SP3.
**

Did you upgrade the IE6 to IE8 on the computer or is this a new install?
Did you export the IE6 favourites to a bookmark file and move it to a new location prior to upgrade?

hermesalpha

You shouldn't need to emply any 3rd party utilities.

sno0401, RDAdams, and others have explained things well, but one thing that hasn't been made absolutely clear to you is that your IE6 exported "bookmark.htm" can be named anything you want to call it.

By default IE6 (and IE7) will set the directory path and file name to save as:
C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\My Documents\bookmark.htm
and that's where the Import Wizard will start off looking for the file.

However, you can easily browse to a different folder, a different drive (such as a usb flash drive), or some other place, and could even name the file:
"My_Exported_IE6_Favorites_Quarter_Past_5_In_The_Afternoon_On_The_31st_July_2009.htm"

As long as it is an *.HTM or *.HTML file, then it will save your favorites into it.  When you come to Import your file, you just browse to wherever you want to import it from and select your file.  It's as simple as that.  You should be seeing the "Browse" button on the Import Wizard.

When exporting Favorites from IE6, just make sure that you choose the top level folder named "Favorites", er else it will only export the selected folder and files.

You stated:
"I have even copied the Favorites-image (the yellow star) to My documents where it usually is located".

The "image" is a folder with the star showing as its icon.  It is a special folder that is normally found here:

C:\Documents and Settings\Bill\Favorites\
NOT under the "My Documents" folder.

It could just be that you are seeing a SHORTCUT to your Favorites folder in your My Documents folder.

Although it is a perfectly acceptable method to copy the contents of a backed-up "Favorites" folder into the current user folder on a new system or new place, you will realise that *.url files (that's what "favorites" shortcuts are but you just don't see the file extension on the end) copy VERY slowly.  This is a behaviour I've never heard fully explained, but they do.  Exporting and importing to and from an *.htm file is VERY fast.

In actual fact, the "bookmark.htm" file (or whatever you exported it as) is a standard HTM/HTML web page with the addition of tags that store "ADD_DATE" (creation date/time), "LAST_VISIT" (self-explanatory) and "LAST_MODIFIED" (self-explanatory) tags in the code that makes up the web page.  These attributes are reapplied to your *.URL (weblink "favorites" files when they are created agian on import of the *.htm file.

You could, if you really wanted, just open up your exported *.htm file and click on the hyperlinks in it.  It will open in Internet Explorer as a normal web page showing "Bookmark" as the page header and bold section headers named after the folders that contained the saved favorites.  If you mess with the code of the web page file in any way, however, it will not import properly.

For your information also, a *.URL file is really just a plain text file that could easily be created in Notepad, and that's why importing and exporting to/from the bookmark.htm file is so fast.  If you opened Notepad, entered the following, and saved the file as "EE.url" (include the dot and the URL parts, plus the enclosing " " or it will save as a *.txt file), it will act just like a file in your Favaorites folder:

[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://www.experts-exchange.com/

The *.URL file extension will vanish, because it's a super-hidden file extension just like the *.LNK extension for Windows Shortcuts as found in your Start Menu.

I hope this takes some of the mystery out of your problem.