I know, I know, I should know this but I don’t.
Fact is, my son’s taking my desktop to an IT guy who’ll get rid of all the bad stuff. The only program I’d want to transfer to my laptop would be Outlook, with all my contacts’ N&A, etc.
Both computers have XP, I can record to DVD if that makes things easier.
Legally, I guess I’d have to delete the program from the desktop, but that’s okay. I have no problem with that.
Which version of Outlook?
In the case of Outlook 2000 (which I just reinstalled last week), look for all files with the extension .pst. Your current data are stored in Outlook.pst, which should be somewhere in the Documents and Settings folder. But if you’ve ever archived any old messages, there will be one or more files called archive.pst or something similar. And I believe that any other files with the .pst extension belong to Outlook, so save them.
After you’ve reinstalled Outlook you can either overwrite the Outlook.pst file it creates with your old one and re-open Outlook, or you can use the File/Import feature. I save my Outlook data on a different drive from the OS, so all I did was tell Outlook to use that location, and it found and loaded the Outlook.pst file. (I think that’s how it happened.)
One thing I found after I finished my reinstall is that I hadn’t saved my e-mail Rules. I just noticed that there is a file called Rules.rwz. So be sure to save that, too, if you’ve created a bunch of rules for handling your e-mail.
I assume that things are more or less the same in later versions of Outlook, but I can’t guarantee that. Good luck.
A better way is to simply do File/Export select .pst file type, select personal folders, check include sub-folders, select a filename and save location. This will save your entire Outlook setup including contacts, calendar, and all email folders. When you re-install Outlook, just import that .pst file and you’re good to go (though you may have to re-setup your mail accounts online to receive new mail).
I would strongly suggest backing up everything before it goes away. Favourites, cookies, data, etc. Indeed, I would check that this ‘IT guy’ is going to back everything up before working on your laptop.
I am under the impression that I’ll save all this to a DVD and then reinstall same on my laptop. If this is true, how do I save to DVD?
Your directions stop at Saving to C:
Please don’t misconstrue what I’m saying here as anything but a respectful question.
I will definitely insist on a full backup. Thanks for suggesting it.
I use this utility http://www.backsettings.com/ (BackRex) for backing up my gajillion emails and contacts. It will even go so far as to backup things like your browsing history, autocomplete history, etc. There are some limitations but they are on minor things like stationery and signatures. It even has an auto-restore function where you just move the backup file to the new machine and execute it, without needing to reinstall the software.
ETA: That is, there are some limitations in the free trial version.
You will end up with a .pst file saved where you told Outlook to save it. If you have a DVD writer, simply burn the file to a data DVD using the software that came with your DVD writer.
When you have the new setup with Outlook installed and running, you can import the .pst file directly from the DVD.
Aha!
Thank you for the information, and your patience! 