Moving Outlook information to different computer

[Muse]

Outlook 2003 data, currently. The new system is running Office 2000 Small Business. The user has a pretty complex system of folders and subfolders, which makes using a .pst file convenient (it can wrap up all the folders into one file). I'm concerned that a backup.pst file made from Office 2003 won't be importable by the Outlook 2000 Small Business application. Is there a workaround other than backing up each folder individually, presumably with something like tab separated values (Windows) or similar?

 

[Muse]

I created a .pst file with just the Contacts and sent it to the user. She saved the attached .pst file and tried to import it and got a message that she didn't have the permissions to do so. What's that about? She's the sole user and Administrator of her XP Pro system.

 

[Fattysharp]

You can take a 2000 pst, and put them into 2003, but not the other way around.

you will have to recreate the pst as a outlook 97-2002 file from the outllook 2003 client, and then send her that pst.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: Fattysharp
You can take a 2000 pst, and put them into 2003, but not the other way around.

you will have to recreate the pst as a outlook 97-2002 file from the outllook 2003 client, and then send her that pst.

How is that done? Not create a new .pst file but recreate the one I already created? I see no option in creating the .pst file from scratch to choose any specific kind of .pst file. How can I convert the .pst file I have to a 97-2007 file. Thanks for the help!

 

[bruceb]

This link at MS tells exactly how to do it

http://office.microsoft.com/en...ok/HA011190371033.aspx

Basically you just do File, New, Outlook Data File & then select the older year format.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: bruceb
This link at MS tells exactly how to do it

http://office.microsoft.com/en...ok/HA011190371033.aspx

Basically you just do File, New, Outlook Data File & then select the older year format.

Thanks. Don't have time to check out that link until tomorrow. But when I do the above, I don't have an option to include subfolders. I select Personal Folders and wind up with a 97-2002 style file that's only 265 kb, not the 357 mb file I get when I used the other method to create the .pst. What do I have to do to get all the data in a 97-2000 file?

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: bruceb
This link at MS tells exactly how to do it

http://office.microsoft.com/en...ok/HA011190371033.aspx

Basically you just do File, New, Outlook Data File & then select the older year format.

Thanks. Don't have time to check out that link until tomorrow. But when I do the above, I don't have an option to include subfolders. I select Personal Folders and wind up with a 97-2002 style file that's only 265 kb, not the 357 mb file I get when I used the other method to create the .pst. What do I have to do to get all the data in a 97-2000 file?

This looks to be exactly the information I need. I didn't have time to check it out yesterday. The title of the page at http://office.microsoft.com/... is Use an Outlook 2003 .pst with earlier versions of Outlook, couldn't be more appropriate. Thanks! I'm digging in now!

PS I sent the user a .pst with just the contacts to keep her going a day or two until I work out something and she said that when she tried to import it she got a message that she didn't have "permissions." 😕 I hope this isn't a show stopper.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: bruceb
This link at MS tells exactly how to do it

http://office.microsoft.com/en...ok/HA011190371033.aspx

Basically you just do File, New, Outlook Data File & then select the older year format.

A week or so ago I tried to help my brother restore outlook info to his wife's computer but the PST file I'd created with my Outlook 2003 evidently wasn't correctly created, so I sent him another.

This time I didn't get as far as last time. I'm trying to follow the instructions in the link above.

We're both running XP Pro, and at item 4. Do one of the following I'm trying to do the first option, Make the copied .pst file the default delivery location for e-mail messages

I do what it says: 1. In Control Panel, double click Mail.

Click Show Profiles, and then do one of the following:

Now, I'm getting this window on my machine, and it seems to be what's expected and desired here:

On my machine

However, my brother's getting this window:

On my sister-in-law's machine

There's no way to "Click Show Profiles" there as the instructions specify and I don't know what to do. What could be going on here? As stated earlier in the thread, she's running Outlook 2000 Small Business and was running a later version of Outlook when I created her backup .pst file. I brought that back home with me and using my Outlook 2003, I created a .pst file that is in Outlook 1997-2002 format, and am trying to open that profile in her Outlook 2000 so she can see all her contacts, inbox & etc. folder.

 

[tcsenter]

Brother's computer having a melt down, eh? 😛

Some things to consider...

Are both Office 2000 installs fully updated including Service Packs?

Are one of you running Outlook with Personal Folders Backup Tool installed but not the other? Microsoft's download page states the tool supports Outlook 2002 or later but Outlook 2000 is supported as well.

Do one of you have Outlook installed in Internet Mail Only mode but not the other?

Some additional reading:

MS Mail Service Is Not Available When You Create a New Profile

How to manage personal folders files in Outlook (Internet Mail Only Mode)

How to manage personal folders files in Outlook (Corporate Workgroup Mode)

How to manage .pst files in Outlook 2007, in Outlook 2003, and in Outlook 2002

PST files cannot be read-only or located on read-only media

Outlook 2000 Solution Center

Outlook 2003 Solution Center


You might need to find an Outlook expert on Microsoft's forums or newsgroups.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: tcsenter
Brother's computer having a melt down, eh? 😛

Some things to consider...

Are both Office 2000 installs fully updated including Service Packs?

Are one of you running Outlook with Personal Folders Backup Tool installed but not the other? Microsoft's download page states the tool supports Outlook 2002 or later but Outlook 2000 is supported as well.

Do one of you have Outlook installed in Internet Mail Only mode but not the other?

[/L]


You might need to find an Outlook expert on Microsoft's forums or newsgroups.

Thanks... again!!

That's a lot to chew on and I may have to (at least short term) respond to the user's suggestion to send her data printed out, e.g. her contacts list. I can do that today, not sure I can figure out how to get her data restored. It would probably be a snap (I think) if she went out and bought a recent edition of Outlook, and maybe she will. She actually has a mind to just buy a new computer, but I told her that unless she buys Outlook, her problem vis a vis this data won't be solved.

I have a feeling that neither of our Outlooks have the service packs installed.

The Personal Folders Backup Tool is, I am guessing (I've heard something about it) an MS add-on, right? I figure that neither of us has that. Can she as an Outlook 2000 Small Business user still install that?

At this point, I have what I have, meaning I have the PST backup file from her previous install of Outlook, and I don't even know what Outlook version that is. Reason for that is that I thought she had the install disk for that version of Outlook but it turned out to be just the Outlook SP1 install disk. Hopefully the Personal Folders Backup Tool can deal with that file I have. I'm guessing that she had Outlook 2003 when I created the PST backup and that she had SP1 installed, but not the Personal Folders Backup Tool.

How can I determine if Outlook is installed in "Internet Mail Only mode?" Is that changeable within Outlook?

When I was trying to help my brother restore the Outlook 1997-2002 PST file I'd created (well, that's what I thought it was) around 10 days ago, I don't think he got the behavior I described yesterday. That makes me wonder if whatever we did 10 days ago caused the behavior we're seeing now. 😕

 

[tcsenter]

I'm hardly an advance Outlook user, not even intermediate. You probably have worked more with Outlook in the past month than I have in the past 5 years.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: tcsenter
I'm hardly an advance Outlook user, not even intermediate. You probably have worked more with Outlook in the past month than I have in the past 5 years.

Yes, thanks, but my experience in the last month is solely in backing up and trying to restore the info to that computer. I haven't used Outlook myself since 2000. I use Forte Agent on my own computers. At the moment I've got my brother copying and pasting info from an email (sent with Agent) into which I pasted the significant info in the contact list, probably around 150 listings. I hope to restore everything but the contact list seems to be square one. It sucks doing tech support from 500 miles away, especially when you don't exactly know what you're doing! 🙂