Thread: MS Outlook

I'm trying to help some people move their Outlook data to a new computer (old emails and address book, etc). Anyone have experience with this. I know that the Windows transfer wizard will move settings for Outlook Express, but not Outlook.

Both the new and old computers are XP Pro SP2, however the Outlook versions are different. The old one is either XP or 2003 and the new one is 2007. They are not using an Exchange Server, just used as Pop 3 email clients.

I don't use Outlook so I don't have a good feel for it. Any help from an experienced user would be appreciated!

All you need to do is create PST files. Before doing so make sure that the emails are organized as best as possible. My recommendation would be to organize them by year. Just create a folder in Outlook named "Email Archive 2005" another one for 2006 and so on. You can create subfolders below these folders if necessary in case they have a lot of email that needs organizing. I would recommend the same subfolders created for each of the annual archive folders.

Once all that is done you can create a PST file for each of the individual email archive folders. To create the PST files just read this article. It's really quite easy.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/829971

Burn the PST files to a CD and a flash drive (or second CD) just to be safe. Once the new pc is setup save the PST files in a folder dedicated to Archived email. Once saved open Outlook on the new pc and setup the PST files in Outlook. To do that read this...again, a very easy process.

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache...ient=firefox-a

The only thing you need to keep an eye on is the size of the PST files. Since you are dealing with a friends personal pc you probably have nothing to worry about. However, you need to know that PST files can become corrupted if they are too large. This usually doesn't become an issue until you get close to the 700mb - 1gb size (an obscene amount of email) but PST files can get that big if they save a lot of emails with attachments. If you notice some pst files getting that big just have them delete emails they don't need starting with anything that has large attachments.

Thanks for the help!

no problemo

if you're using outlook xp, then yes i wouldn't make the pst files too big.

but if you're using 2003 and up, it should be fine as long as you make a 2003 .pst file.

Originally Posted by yipperzz

if you're using outlook xp, then yes i wouldn't make the pst files too big.

but if you're using 2003 and up, it should be fine as long as you make a 2003 .pst file.

not necesarily true. I've seen several examples of corrupted .pst files with Outlook 2003 users.

2GB is about the limit for PST files.. After it hits 2GB, its very likely the PST will blow up. Always backup your data!

Originally Posted by OrangePuck

not necesarily true. I've seen several examples of corrupted .pst files with Outlook 2003 users.

probably true...i guess i haven't had as much experience with 2003+ pst's since i moved on from desktop support. my company has or had MANY users with 10+ gb pst's using outlook 2003. and they killed our servers and our bandwidth (remote users). so we had bigger issues to deal with other than corrupted pst's.

i have no sympathy for users with pst's that big anyways. most of it is junk that belongs on file servers. not as file attachments on mail servers

Thanks everyone for your input. I was able to port the data and settings ok. Now my problem is that outgoing mail is not being sent. The settings for his pop3 appear to be correct and the test send and receive are working fine. But outgoing mail just sits there and is not sent. I hope I didn't mess things up by porting data from an earlier version of the software to the 2007 version.