lets start at the begining.

Thunderbird stores all address information in it's address book on your hard drive. I stored Zero information in the cloud unless you specifically set it up to do so with add-ons etc.

Thunderbird has no password. There is a master password some folk use, but it encrypts only the passwords stored in Thunderbird. So mail and address books are never encrypted.

Forgot you mail password for your mail account. Contact your mail provider whom ever that may be. It is not Mozilla or Thunderbird. You mail provider will be the company that has their name after the @ in your email address.

I have no idea about your gmail invite. Are gmail your mail provider or someone else. Tha all just appear to be random information.

It may appear random because I don't understand what has been done and why I can't make it work. And I'm old. If the information is on the hard drive of the old computer, then I need to figure out how to get it off?

Given that you're keen on retrieving your Address Book, I'd look into recovering the profile from the old computer. But if it has "died" that may mean removing its hard disk, setting that disk up in a caddy or installing it into the new computer then finding and moving the profile onto the new computer's hard disk. And it's possible the thing that actually died is the old computer's hard disk.

You should be able to work with your email provider to re-set or change your account's password, and then you could set that up anew on the new computer. But without knowing anything about your account, it's impossible to say whether or not you'd get your old messages back too. It's possible that the only record of these is on the old hard disk.

I can't think of nor remember any time-limited deals offered by Gmail. I have had several accounts with them for many years and they all continue to work.

So what is there after the @ in your "Thunderbird account"?

charter.net. Nationwide cable company. I want Thunderbird back because of the various groups I had organized there. With the cable company 1) I don't have the addresses to organize and 2) creating a group is a slow, posterior pain process. Not user friendly.

I think we might need to do this with some pictures, like what you see when you open Thunderbird. What is it makes you think it is not working?

But first. Please add the troubleshooting information to your post To find the Troubleshooting information:

• Open Help (or click on three-line-icon and select Help)
• Choose Troubleshooting Information
• Use the button Copy to clipboard to select all. Do not check box "Include account names"!
• Paste this in your post.

That might provide some information on what if anything is happening in Thunderbird.

Now for the next part. Press the windows key (between Alt and Ctrl on most key boards) and R In the run dialog that opens type

%appdata%\Thunderbird\profiles and press enter.

In the windows explorer window that opens what folder names are listed. They should consist of a collection of randoms letters and at least one will have the word default at the end. I am expecting perhaps more than one folder there.

Application Basics

   Name: Thunderbird
   Version: 31.6.0
   User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.6.0
   Profile Folder: Show Folder

             (Local drive)
   Application Build ID: 20150330093429
   Enabled Plugins: about:plugins
   Build Configuration: about:buildconfig
   Memory Use: about:memory

 Mail and News Accounts
   account1:
     INCOMING: account1, , (imap) mobile.charter.net:993, SSL, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: mobile.charter.net:587, SSL, passwordCleartext, true

   account2:
     INCOMING: account2, , (none) Local Folders, plain, passwordCleartext

 Crash Reports

 Extensions
   McAfee Anti-Spam Thunderbird Extension, 2.0, false, msktbird@mcafee.com

 Important Modified Preferences

   Name: Value

     browser.cache.disk.capacity: 358400
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size_cached_value: 358400
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run: false
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max: false
     extensions.lastAppVersion: 31.6.0
     font.name.monospace.el: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.tr: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-baltic: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-central-euro: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-cyrillic: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-unicode: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-western: Consolas
     font.name.sans-serif.el: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.tr: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-baltic: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-central-euro: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-cyrillic: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-unicode: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-western: Calibri
     font.name.serif.el: Cambria
     font.name.serif.tr: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-baltic: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-central-euro: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-cyrillic: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-unicode: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-western: Cambria
     font.size.fixed.el: 14
     font.size.fixed.tr: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-baltic: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-central-euro: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-cyrillic: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-unicode: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-western: 14
     font.size.variable.el: 17
     font.size.variable.tr: 17
     font.size.variable.x-baltic: 17
     font.size.variable.x-central-euro: 17
     font.size.variable.x-cyrillic: 17
     font.size.variable.x-unicode: 17
     font.size.variable.x-western: 17
     gfx.direct3d.last_used_feature_level_idx: 0
     mail.openMessageBehavior.version: 1
     mail.winsearch.enable: true
     mail.winsearch.firstRunDone: true
     mail.winsearch.global_reindex_time: 1465093205
     mailnews.database.global.datastore.id: 7b179de5-0e78-4a8a-b389-592a9c58fd5
     network.cookie.prefsMigrated: true
     places.database.lastMaintenance: 1465240202
     places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages: 104858
     plugin.importedState: true

 Graphics

     Adapter Description: NVIDIA GeForce GT 730
     Vendor ID: 0x10de
     Device ID: 0x1287
     Adapter RAM: 2048
     Adapter Drivers: nvd3dumx,nvwgf2umx,nvwgf2umx,nvwgf2umx nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
     Driver Version: 10.18.13.5382
     Driver Date: 8-7-2015
     Direct2D Enabled: true
     DirectWrite Enabled: true (10.0.10586.0)
     ClearType Parameters: ClearType parameters not found
     WebGL Renderer: false
     GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1 Direct3D 10

     AzureCanvasBackend: direct2d
     AzureSkiaAccelerated: 0
     AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: cairo
     AzureContentBackend: direct2d

 JavaScript

 Incremental GC: 1

 Accessibility

   Activated: 0
   Prevent Accessibility: 0

 Library Versions

     Expected minimum version
     Version in use

     NSPR
     4.10.6
     4.10.6

     NSS
     3.16.2.3 Basic ECC
     3.16.2.3 Basic ECC

     NSS Util
     3.16.2.3
     3.16.2.3

     NSS SSL
     3.16.2.3 Basic ECC
     3.16.2.3 Basic ECC

     NSS S/MIME
     3.16.2.3 Basic ECC
     3.16.2.3 Basic ECC

gn01spey.default

That's the only one listed.

When I open Thunderbird, I get the "normal" page with "Inbox" highlighted. Overlayed is a window "Mail server password required". The cursor flashes in the box labeled "Enter your password for upstage@charter.net@mobile.charter.net" When I enter what I think is my password, it tells me that it's wrong and to enter a new password.

You should be able to work with charter.net to re-set your password. Login to your account with them and look for "forgot my password" or similar. You may need to call them by phone.

"Nationwide"? Remember the internet is international. Matt is in Australia, I am in the UK. Neither of us can get very far with charter to help you out. But your settings correspond with this page:

http://www.charter.net/support/internet/email-settings/#mobile-email-settings

so that all looks good.

Thanks. I assumed you might be out-of-country from the syntax of the messages. "Nationwide" was a point of reference in case you aren't familiar with the size of the organization. For several years, I used a very local internet provider; a guy with some servers in a closet of a building in downtown Seattle. Never had any problems!  :-) I'll have to work on this tomorrow since the rest of my day is full of other issues. I'll post later how it works out. Thanks, again.

I notice your server settings say 'mobile.charter.net'. According to charter info: The mobile device settings can also be used on a laptop or netbook to send messages using a desktop email client when not connected to a Spectrum Internet connection.

Are you using a laptop or desktop computer? Do you connect using a Spectrum Internet connection?

If desktop or use a Spectrum Internet connection then you need to read info at link as you cannot use the 'mobile.charter.net'.

See info here: http://www.charter.net/support/internet/email-settings/#/desktop-email-settings

Usually, when you try to logon to your charter webmail account using a browser, there is a 'Forgotten Password' or similar link which you can use. Follow instructions to reset a password. Then make sure you can use that password to logon to webmail.

then in Thunderbird use that same password at the prompt and select the checkbox 'Use Password Manager to remember password'. click on OK