How
to Backup Email Messages, Address Books and Dictionaries
Introduction
Outlook comes in four versions, Outlook 97, 98, 2000 and 2002.
They are not only powerful email programs but also offer calendar
and other features and are usually installed as part of the various
versions of Microsoft Office which most Small Firms will use.
Outlook Express
is a "lite" version which comes bundled with Internet
Explorer and Windows. The majority of ISPs assume you will use
it. Most home and some small businesses are using it.
Exchange, Messaging and Outlook
Backing Up: Although they are more powerful programs
than Outlook Express the full versions are much easier to back up
and restore. I use a laptop and regularly move my email system back
and forth. It is easy because there are usually only two files for
each user/profile, The Personal Address Book (with a .pab ending)
contains the Address Book and the Personal Folders (with a .pst
ending) contain all the messages compressed into one file - they
are usually called mailbox.pab and mailbox.pst. Their home varies
between configurations and it is easiest to locate them by Find
(on the Start Menu) or Tools -> Find in Windows Explorer. Just
look for files named *.pab and *.pst in C:/ and all sub-directories,
it only takes a few seconds. Copy them to your CD or backup tape.
If you have archived your folders you should also save any other
*.pst files (default is archive.pst).
Restoring: This is easy as you just copy over the
top of the .pab and .pst files created if you have to reload Outlook
or if you have done other damage. You can also Import them using
File -> Import and Export -> Files from Other Programs ->
Personal Address Book /Personal Folders (.pst) (the same way you
get back archived information) The only thing to watch is that the
files may have moved to a new home if you reinstall Outlook or create
a new Profile.
Outlook Express
Backing up messages: It is not so easy to backup
and restore Outlook Express as it has a folder structure for messages
and the address book is also less accessible. You need to copy the
entire folder structure which usually has a folder called Outlook
Express at the top. It again varies in location. I look for it using
Find of files ending in .dbx for OE5 (there are even more files
in earlier version - look for *.mbx files). Check dates to locate
the files in use if you find more than one Outlook Express Folder.
It is also possible to change where the Folder is saved to make
life easy when you back up - Tools -> Options -> Maintenance
Tab where you will find a button marked Store Folder.
Restoring messages: The safest way is to use Import
on the File Menu -> Messages -> Outlook Express 5 and click
Import mail from an OE 5 store Directory then Browse to the top
level directory where you have the back up. You will have a choice
of which folders you wish to import - beware of ending up with duplicated
messages by renaming or moving folders before you import another
with the same name.
Backing
Up Address Books (Contacts): The best way is to Export
your Address Book as a Comma Separated Values (CSV) file (.csv
ending). Use File -> Export -> Address Book -> Text File
(Comma Separated Values) and then Browse to a suitable location
for you backup such as the CD or Tape and give it a name including
the date. CSV files can be looked at in Notepad and open as a
worksheet in Excel or a Table in Word so you can print them out.
Restoring
Address Books You can Import them back into Outlook Express
and the import process will ask what to do if you have duplicates.
Import by File -> Import -> Other Address Book -> Text
File (CSV) -> Browse for File and Finish (accepting defaults
for fields and mapping). The CSV file is also a good way to provide
addresses to other people by, for example, attaching it to an
email - you can even modify entries in Excel and save them back
as .csv files. They can copy it to the desktop or a folder and
then import it into Outlook Express or Outlook (and many other
email programs) .
Dictionaries
It is easy to forget that folks also need to Back Up the custom
dictionaries associated with your email and other spell checkers.
These are usually *.dic files and can be found using Find *.dic.
a way of making sure is to add a garbage string asdfghj or similar
and then use Find to search for files containing it. Dictionaries
are common to several Microsoft programs - Word 97, Outlook 9X
and Outlook Express 5 use the same spell checking custom dictionary
on my system although they work in different ways and make different
suggestions.
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