(PeteCresswell) said:
I'm trying to move all my Outlook 2003 data from the PC's system
drive to a "Data" drive.
I am using a POP3 mail provider, not anything Microsoft.
Looks to me like everything (sent mail, received mail, and
contacts/address book) is in a single .PST file - which I have
successfully moved to the "Data" drive.
Have I got it right? Or are there some gotchas lurking?
Besides the .pst file, other files are:
outcmd.dat
nk2.dat
extend.dat
<mailprofile>.srs
<mailprofile>.xml
outcmd.dat has your toolbar customizations. nk2 is the auto-complete
cache of user-entered strings, like for the To field for recipient
e-mail addresses (discontinued in OL2007 and moved into the .pst file).
extend.dat is used to cache up Outlook extensions (add-ons).
frmcache.dat is the forms cache. The .srs file has the settings for the
send/receive groups. The .xml file has the nav pane settings. There's
no point in moving these other files since Outlook always looks for them
at:
%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
%userprofile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
%userprofile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Signatures
%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Forms
That means you can't get all your user data/config files moved to a
different drive. You can, however, move the .pst file and configure
Outlook to look in the new path for it. It also means if you do backups
and want to restore Outlook to its prior state that you not only include
the .pst file but all the other Outlook files (with the exception of
extend.dat which is rebuilt if missing when Outlook starts).
None of the e-mail account info is stored in the .pst file (or other
files). It is stored in the registry for the mail profile at:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows
Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\<profilename>
Values are crypto hashed so you cannot simply copy the registry keys and
import them into another instance of Windows. You'll have to recreate
your e-mail account definitions in Outlook in a fresh install of
Outlook. I think (but am not sure) the Save My Settings wizard that
comes with Office 2003 (no longer available in Office 2007, and later)
that includes the accounts in its output .ops file; however, that wizard
is mostly useful for restoring te config in the same instance of
Windows, not for moving the .ops file to another instance of Windows on
another host to restore Outlook's settings there.
