The girlfriend-person is an AOL user (Windows 98). Several screen names, each with their own set of bookmarks (Favorite Places) and each with an immense collection of old Inbox and Outbox email. All of this stuff seems to be saved in folder called “Organize” in the AOL folder.
We had to nuke her hard drive and reinstall everything this weekend. We were clever enough to back up the “organize” folder. Reinstalled AOL 6 and went through the automatic wizard-thingie to put her old accounts on the new computer, which it does–you specify one screen name and it gets the whole account’s collection thereof. Quit AOL, copy contents of backed-up “Organize” to newly installed “Organize”, replacing same-named files. Launch AOL. Series of 5 evil messages: “Could not load a file, will restore from backup”. Arrive at logon screen. Poke around a bit, switch screen names, etc. Hmm. Seems the one screen name we logged in under to set up the accoun during the “wizard” process is lacking all of its old email and its Favorite Places. The other screen names, on the other hand, are doing well.
Lather, rinse, repeat several times over, with diminishing returns. This includes officially uninstalling AOL and also simply renaming the last install to “NotQuiteAOL” or whatever and reinstalling to a new location. Found a Backup folder within AOL folder and deleted files from within. Doesn’t seem to help. Somehow, SOMEWHERE, this bloody program has an annoyingly good memory for what was in Favorite Places and Filing Cabinet the last time the account was used, and it doesn’t respond well to manual copy and replace maneuvers.
Anyone know how one efficiently restores the full use of a copy of the “Organize” folder, e.g., after reformatting a hard drive?
Girlfriend is sulking in the bed now, back turned, stating that she should’ve just tossed the computer in the trash instead.