When you import the Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 bookmarks file to a system running Internet Explorer 7 or earlier, the following error occurs when you click Finish in the Import/Export Wizard.

Not a valid bookmark file

I could fully reproduce the problem in my Windows XP SP3 system running Internet Explorer 7. The source computer runs Windows Vista with Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 installed. Thinking that this could be due to incorrect formatting or missing tags in the HTML file, I opened the file using Notepad but couldn’t find any errors in it. Eventually I spotted that this issue is caused by incorrect encoding used by Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 to create/write to bookmark.htm. With that said, the fix is very simple.

To resolve the problem, save the bookmarks file as ANSI text. To do so, use the following steps:

Start Notepad, and then open the bookmarks file (bookmark.htm)

Click Save As on the File menu.

In the Save As dialog box, click ANSI in the Encoding list, and then click Save.

Click Yes when prompted to overwrite the file.

You should be able to import the bookmark file successfully using the Import/Export Wizard in Internet Explorer.


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44 Comments

  1. TowieOCP
    said this on Thursday, September 15th 2011 7:07 pm

    Excellent advice! Many thanks.

  2. anu
    said this on Wednesday, September 7th 2011 6:32 pm

    yoyoyo….thanks

  3. vulcan
    said this on Sunday, August 14th 2011 9:17 am

    you were the only light in all the darkness

  4. thank you !
    said this on Friday, July 29th 2011 8:11 pm

    i struggled for hours on thsi , thanks !!

  5. tim
    said this on Wednesday, July 27th 2011 3:28 pm

    thank you so much, i was really frustraded

  6. olga
    said this on Wednesday, July 27th 2011 3:27 pm

    sooooooooooooooooo many thanks

  7. abhishek
    said this on Monday, July 18th 2011 2:17 pm

    thanks for
    perfect solution

  8. C.Haka
    said this on Friday, May 20th 2011 7:33 pm

    Works like a charm! Fantastic!!!

  9. Greatful PC Owner
    said this on Saturday, April 23rd 2011 9:18 am

    Plenty Thanks!! This was perfect!

  10. Bill
    said this on Saturday, April 9th 2011 8:02 pm

    Thanks a lot! It worked great.

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