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If your administrator chose not to automatically upgrade mail templates, you will see the Upgrade Mail File Design dialog box the first time you log in to Lotus Notes after you have upgraded to a new release.
Upgrading your mail template does not delete existing mail messages, personal folders or categories, document links, or any other standard Lotus Notes features. However, upgrading deletes any personal agents and any custom forms or views. You can protect customized forms or views in your mail file from changing during the upgrade process by setting them to be unaffected by design changes. If you do not protect them in this way, upgrade only if you didn't customize any features or don't want to keep those you created. Refusing to upgrade means that you may not be able to see new Lotus Notes features in the mail messages you receive from users who have upgraded, and in your mail view.
Note: If you are using MicrosoftR WindowsR, installing Lotus NotesR 8.x from the installation media kit will, by default, upgrade your Lotus Notes installation from Lotus Notes 6.5.x or 7.x to the Lotus Notes 8.x release. If you install Lotus Notes 8.x in this manner, you will need to upgrade your mail and contact templates to their NotesR 8.x equivalent. See the Lotus Notes installation and upgrade section of the DominoR Administrator help for complete details on the mail and contacts template upgrade process. The Domino Administrator help is available at www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/documentation/domino and publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/domhelp/v8r0/index.jsp.
What you can do
When prompted to upgrade, do one of the following: