Vista - Help with Backing Up Outlook 2003 Custom Settings

This is for XP more than for Vista. I have been using Outlook since as far as I can remember but, there are times that I want to ring its neck or tear it apart limb from limb... I guess is better I don't know who the creator is

But I digress... Anyways, back to my original thought. I have been having some issues with Outlook (best to use a new thread for this) so I decided to change to Mozilla Thunderbird but it didn't work like I thought it would (again... new thread). Bottom line is ... I have to go back to Outlook 2003.

My pet peeve is that, even though I back up my pst files, eveytime I need to do a clean Outlook 2003 install or simple migration of sorts, I loose my custom settings, rules & alerts, etc, etc.

Is there an easy way to back up all these custom settings as well so you can migrate Outlook painlessly? I have done the google 'till my eyes drew blood but all I am getting are mixed solutions or me having to install a 3rd party software...

Right now I have 3 e-mail accounts being handled by Outlook, my Office Personal, Company's bulk e-mail and Company's g-mail so I use a lot of custom settings.

are you using the wizard to backup?

Description and use of the Save My Settings Wizard

No I am not, I am using the Export option so only my e-mails and contacts get to be backed-up and nothing else.

I am going to try that option on Monday when I am back at the office. I browse through it and it appears that it will be more than what I want or can handle but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Thanks

some of your outlook profile information such as recently emailed contacts in the to.. dialogue box info is stored in a file called *.NK2 if you run a search it should come up! it will be called the same name as the profile in outlook so e.g. outlook.nk2

that in vista:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook should be a case of restoring or overwriting that or changing the file name to match your new outlook profile name.

within this folder you will also file a file called with the extension *.srs this is your send and receive configuration file.

Rules and Alerts are apparently stored in a file called, Username.rwz however i cannot find it when I search unless i go through outlook's export procedure and then it would create one.

If you had an outlook signature it may be located in the following directory in vista:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Signatures

sorry could not be of more assistance hope that helps.

Kind Regards,

Benmarshall5364

Thanks a lot for the tip.

Now, I am running XP Pro w/SP3... would I find those files in the same or different place than Vista?

Archie123, it appears the Wizard did the Trick. All I got to do now is install a fresh window + Office and try the wizard.

Although, now that I think about it, I am doubting if I am going to use the wizard or not... what is part of the problem is some of those settings I have? I hate 2nd guessing myself.

Hi,

Paths are slightly different.

c:\documents & settings\username rather than c:\users\username

hope this helps.

B.

Well, I decided to do a clean XP Pro w/SP3 install and everything went smoothly until I got to the Office 2003 installation.

After installing Office 2003, I went ahead and restore both my Outlook.pst and the settings I had backed-up with the Wizard and now, I seem to be having an error that I have never seen in my life and it seems that neither has Google

If you see the attached images, you will see what I am talking about. On my part, I already went to Control Panel/Add Remove Programs/Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 and used the "Change" button to do a Reinstall/Repair to no avail. I am wondering if I clean install will yield the same results or not.