[Evolution] Updating to evolution 2.8.2-5 from version 1.4.5 and keeping all of our data intact!

[Jennifer Weltz <jweltz jvnla com>]

We just did a big upgrade of our systems and are trying to upgrade our older evolution (1.4.5) to our newer version (2.8.2-5) while keeping our calendar, e-mails, contacts, filters, v-folders etc... and have been having some major problems.
1. When trying to upgrade through launching evolution, it gave us a error message saying that it couldn't find file config.xmldb which did not exist anywhere in our old system that we could find!
2. When we proceeded without that file only the contacts and calendar were brought in and we have needed to manually create in every single e-mail folder and then import the e-mails into each file!
3. There were some computers where we clicked on Evolution before we had made our old data accessible.  When we then tried to make it see the contacts to then import them, this seemed impossible to do!
4. Is there some way of getting evolution to upgrade even after it has launched or to undo the launch and is there an easier way of importing the e-mails?

Any help would be truly appreciated!

Jennifer