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Old January 10th, 2005, 12:03 AM
Jocelyn Fiorello [MVP - Outlook]
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In ,
Elbert wrote:

My old computer is dead but the C-drive disk is OK, now connected to
my new computer via a USB adapter. I installed Outlook 2003 onto the
new computer from CD, and wanted to copy all stored emails etc. from
the old disk.

I found that installation from CD put new outlook.pst and some other
OL files in c:\documents and settings\Elbert\local
settings\application data\microsoft\outlook. I deleted them and then
copied the files from the same place on the old disk drive.

It almost worked, except:

(1) when I try to compose a new email and click on the TO button, it
says "The address list could not be displayed. The contacts list
associated with this address list could not be opened; it may have
been moved or deleted..." But if I click on Contacts in the
navigation bar, I see my contacts, and if I right click on a contact,
I can select "New Message to Contact";


This is a common occurrence when moving things around -- the association
between the Contacts folder and the Outlook Address Book gets broken. To
fix it, go to Tools | E-mail accounts, select "View or change existing
directories or address books", and click Next. If you don't see the OAB in
the Directories and Address Books list, click the Back button, then select
"Add a new directory or address book", then "Additional Address Books", and
add the OAB. Then keep clicking Back until you get back to the first dialog
box, and go back to the Directories and Address Books list as you did
earlier.

Once the OAB appears in the list, select it and then click Change to make
sure the Contacts folder(s) you want to display are listed. If any of them
aren't listed, you'll need to enable those Contacts folders as Outlook
Address Books by right clicking the folder, selecting Properties, clicking
the Outlook Address Book tab, and checking the "Show this folder as an
E-mail address book" box. Make sure you restart Outlook after making these
changes.

(2) When I click on Personal Folders in the navigation bar, I see
columns with my calendar, tasks, and counts of messages of messages,
just as I used to, except that the tasks are shown reverse
chronological order. If I display tasks by clicking tasks in the
navigation bar, I see them in chronological order, but I can't figure
out how to see them that way in Personal Folders view.


On the Outlook Today page, click Customize Outlook Today. You can change
the sort order of your tasks in Outlook Today there.

(3) Something I read gave me the impression that I should have
imported the old outlook.pst into outlook.pst that was newly created
when I installed OL. I moved all OL related files I could find to a
temporary folder, then uninstalled OL and reinstalled it, figuring it
would create a nice clean outlook.pst and I'd try importing to it;
this would give me the new file structure, too, in place of the
OL2002 structure. But no dice: When I try to run the newly intsalled
OL, it says it cannot find outlook.pst (it did not create a new one)
and it refuses to run.


The only thing I can see that you did "wrong" is to overwrite the new .PST
file with your old one, as you describe in the second paragraph of your
post. Doing this confuses Outlook. .PST files can be located anywhere on
your hard drive, so never overwrite one .PST with another -- just put your
desired .PST file where you want it and then point Outlook to it. If you
were using Outlook 2002 before and your old .PST file is in that format, you
probably do want to create a new .PST in the Outlook 2003 Unicode format,
open your old .PST in Outlook using File | Open | Outlook Data File, and
drag items from your old file to the new one. That way you get the benefits
of the new Unicode file format but you still have your old data. Don't
import and export, either -- that breaks things too.

I have a feeling that all of these are due to the simple-minded
approach I took to trying to move the old data. If anybody can tell
me how to start over and do it right, or how to fix things without
starting over, I'd sure appreciate it.

Elbert


--
Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

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