Recovering Outlook Files

[Zauberkind]

Greetings,

As a result of the total failure of my previous computer, I have a new system. I changed from XP (English)/Office 2003 (English) to Win7 (German)/Office 2003 (German).

I managed to salvage the files from my previous system.

Can I recover the locally stored messages, contacts, and calendar entries from Outlook and import them into the new Outlook?

The obvious solution of just copying them back into the directory doesn't seem to work.

TIA
Zk

[HansV]

First, locate the copy of your old .pst file(s) in Windows Explorer.
Right-click each of them in turn and select Properties from the context menu.
Make sure that the Read-Only check box is clear, and if there is an Unblock button near the bottom of the dialog, click it. Then click OK.
The reason for this step is that files sometimes become read-only or blocked, depending on the method used to transfer them from one computer to another.
Outlook can't work with read-only or blocked files.

Next, start the Mail control panel. If you open Control Panel in category view, you'll find it under User Accounts and Parental Control.
Click Data Files...
Here, you can .pst files by clicking Add..., and specify which one will be your default .pst file.

x1070.png

If you can't set your old .pst file as default, you can add it, then start Outlook and copy items to your new default .pst file. For mail items, that is relatively straightforward. For calendar items, it's easiest to switch to a list view instead of the default month/day/week view.

[Zauberkind]

Thanks Hans,

I copied the files, so they're openable and unlocked.

Next, start the Mail control panel. If you open Control Panel in category view, you'll find it under User Accounts and Parental Control.
Click Data Files...
Here, you can .pst files by clicking Add..., and specify which one will be your default .pst file.

My dialog box looks somewhat different, and there's no provision to set a default account:

OutlookControl.jpg

If you can't set your old .pst file as default, you can add it, then start Outlook and copy items to your new default .pst file.

It would have been nice to recover the old .ost files, rather than downloading all that stuff from the Hotmail cloud.
I also haven't found any way to reset Hotmail as my default outgoing mail service. I did it once, but now I'm stumped.

For calendar items, it's easiest to switch to a list view instead of the default month/day/week view.

How to do that?
I copied the folder wholesale and just ignore the default calendar.
Since I use Hotmail as my main personal mail provider, the autostore of calendar messages is sporadic at best.

Once again, thanks for the help
Zk

[HansV]

The screenshots I posted are for Outlook 2010.

In Outlook 2003, the "default" pst file is called the delivery location - see Changing the Default Data File.

To use Hotmail with Outlook, you need the Outlook Hotmail Connector - see Outlook Hotmail Connector 32-bit.