you need to move the data in the admin account to the same location in the new account.

in the start menu type %appdata% and press enter. note the location well. now do the same in the admin account.

Copy the Thunderbird folder and sub folders from %appdata%\local\Thunderbird and %appdata%\roaming\Thunderbird to the same location in your limited profile and then start Thunderbird.

Thanks Matt. I have tried to do what I think you mean with zero success. Any chance of a more detailed reply as my knowledge of geek is unfortunately far less than your knowledge of geriatric. My apologies for being so behind the eight ball on computers

lets start slow. Were you logged on as administrator to copy? You will not have access to the files if you were not. Did you find the Thunderbird profile?

If you think you have copies it where it needs to be and it is not working. try using the profile manager to tell Thunderbird where that location is.

edit the shortcut on your desktop for Thunderbird (Right click Properties) and add a -P to the target so it looks like

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe" -P 

Now close Thunderbird

When you start Thunderbird you will be asked for a profile to use. However hat we are doing is creating a new one. Selecting a new profile and pointing to one that already exists causes it to be used.

Now to the actual profile part. Originally I told you to copy %appdata%\Thunderbird. Now you need to drill down into the Thunderbird folder and open profiles. This folder will, if you only have one profile, contain a folder with 8 random characters and .default That is the actual profile folder.

So using the profile manager to point to a new profile in that location should cause Thunderbird to load with your old data all intact (IF it actually got copies of course)