Copying all things for Outlook to another PC

[-Chris-]

Has anyone come across, from personal experience, a good way/programme to back up everything to do with Outlook 2003 (I know it's an old programme, but have tried newer versions and didn't like them, so don't go there! ) emails, rules, signatures, settings, contacts, accounts, everything.

 

[Z15CAM]

Simply copy OutLook's extend.dat and Outlook.pst files to a BackUp Drive or USB Stick. After installing Office 2003 on a new system and setting up your E-Mail - DELETE the installations extend.dat and Outlook.pst files - whend OutLook opens it will say can't locate the PST file - Simply browse and pint OutLook to whatever location you want to keep your Post Office.

 

[ArtShapiro]

If you export
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook

and import it on the new machine, it will give you all your accounts except for having to provide the password(s) one time.

Art

 

[-Chris-]

Many thanks for the ideas above. So, if I do the two above ideas together, would that give me the backup of *everything* to do with Outlook 2003 please? ie, all emails, in all PST's (currently about 20 of them), all rules, address book/contacts, account details (about 15 accounts), signatures, etc. ?

 

[Dahak]

Partly.

The PST will do the contacts, and emails.
The reg key will do the account settings.
For the rules, you have to manually export them from the rules wizard from within outlook
For the signature, you will have to backup the signature folder, usually buried under c:documents and settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft or
c:documents and settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft

Assuming this is on XP

 

[-Chris-]

Partly.

The PST will do the contacts, and emails.
The reg key will do the account settings.
For the rules, you have to manually export them from the rules wizard from within outlook
For the signature, you will have to backup the signature folder, usually buried under c:documents and settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft or
c:documents and settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft

Assuming this is on XP

Thanks for the detailed help. It's appreciated, Sorry, I should have mentioned the OS, it's going from one laptop on win 7 64-bit to another laptop on win 7 64-bit. Does alter your answer at all please?

 

[ArtShapiro]

Not a problem on your 7x64 -> 7x64 transfer. It should work fine.

Just a word of warning: if you move eventually to 8.1, Outlook 2003 does not work as well as on Win7 and below. Otherwise, I agree with your positive assessment of 2003.

Art

 

[Chiefcrowe]

In case you didn't know, Office2003 is no longer getting security updates so I'd highly consider moving to 2010 or higher.

There are also programs to make 2010 look more like 2003 like this one
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/19323/bring-office-2003-menus-back-to-2010-with-ubitmenu

 

[-Chris-]

Thanks for all the ideas, it's appreciated. With the emails in the PST's, there's about 18 PST's in total, can I just copy them from one laptop to another?

 

[-Chris-]

Simply copy OutLook's extend.dat and Outlook.pst files to a BackUp Drive or USB Stick. After installing Office 2003 on a new system and setting up your E-Mail - DELETE the installations extend.dat and Outlook.pst files - whend OutLook opens it will say can't locate the PST file - Simply browse and pint OutLook to whatever location you want to keep your Post Office.

Done the search (never easy on windows 7!), and found about 25 extend.dat's and about 20 Outlook.pst's ? ? ? Heeeelp!

 

[Dahak]

Done the search (never easy on windows 7!), and found about 25 extend.dat's and about 20 Outlook.pst's ? ? ? Heeeelp!

Probably the easiest way to find the pst's is go into Control Panel -> Mail and click on Data files. Then you can select the data file/account and click on Open File Location.

Then you would have to copy them to the exact same location on the new machine, if you want to use the settings/reg backup that you did.
Otherwise when you open it and it cant find the pst it will ask and you can select it if its in another location

 

[-Chris-]

Probably the easiest way to find the pst's is go into Control Panel -> Mail and click on Data files. Then you can select the data file/account and click on Open File Location.

Then you would have to copy them to the exact same location on the new machine, if you want to use the settings/reg backup that you did.
Otherwise when you open it and it cant find the pst it will ask and you can select it if its in another location

Thanks, but how about the extend.dat's ? Which one ?