Again: transferring contacts, emails, etc. between computers

[Martin Nelson]

I posed this question before, but upon finally followiing suggestions
provided here I find I am having no luck. Here's the original question
(with one addition added in caps), the responses and my results

Q: "I have a desktop (G4, dual 800 MHz running OS X.2.8 and Entourage
10.1.4) I do the bulk of my work and emailing on and a PowerBook (G4,
867MHz, X.2.8, Entourage 10.1.4) that I carry with me on jobs and
occaisionally use as my principal computer on extended trips. I would
like to be able to update the calendar and address book AND EMAILS on
the laptop on a fairly regular basis. What is the best way to do
this?"

A: "If you only ever use one machine at a time, just copy over the
identity folder from one machine to another. Make sure you turn off
notifications and quit all office apps first.

The identities folder can be found inside the "Microsoft User Data'
folder inside your Documents folder."

Someone else wrote that they were, "…trying to set up Entourage on a
new computer and want to transfer all contacts as well as old e-mail.
What is the best way to make sure all data in
transfered?"

A: "Quit all office apps, then copy the entire "Microsoft User Data"
folder from the documents folder of the old machine to the new one. --
Barry Wainwright
Microsoft MVP"

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I TRIED THESE APPROACHES

First off, I seem to have two Microsoft User Data folders on my
desktop --the computer from which I wish to copy everything. One is in
my root documents folder (Hard Drive>Documents>MUD) and has a folder
called simply "Identities," the other is inside the documents folder
in my user folder (Martin>Documents>MUD) and has a folder called
"Office X Identites."

I have now tried to replace first one and then both of these folders
on my laptop and upon launching Entourage I continue to get all the
old info.

Sorry for the longwindedness of this question. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Martin

 

[Nick Collingridge]

Firstly, the folder called Documents on the top level of your hard drive is a
remnant from OS9. The folder called Identities that's a few levels down
within here was used up to Office 2001. The folder called MacOS X Identities
is, as the name suggests, the appropriate folder for Office v.X and that is the
folder that you should be transferring across.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Firstly, the folder called Documents on the top level of your hard drive is a
remnant from OS9. The folder called Identities that's a few levels down
within here was used up to Office 2001.

(Actually the folder called simply "Identities" was for Outlook Express.
Office 2001 used one called "Office 2001 Identities" so you might see one of
those too. The folder called Documents at the top level of the startup disk
was, as you say, the location for the Microsoft User Data folder in OS 9
(and 8), and also in OS 10.1 for their Outlook Express and Entourage 2001
used within Classic. Since Jaguar, OS 10.2, even these Classic apps use the
other Microsoft User Data folder in ~/Documents (the Documents folder within
your "home" - the OS username folder in /Users folder). So even that
Microsoft User Data folder might have an Identities folder (for OE 5 in
Classic), an Office 2001 Identities folder (for Entourage 2001 in Classic)
and an Office X Identities folder (for Entourage X). The latter is the one
you want.

The folder called MacOS X Identities
is, as the name suggests, the appropriate folder for Office v.X and that is
the
folder that you should be transferring across.

Not exactly. It's called "Office X Identities". To sum up, it's here:

~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office X Identities/

where "~/" means

[Hard Disk]/Users/[username]/

In Panther, you can start out from that "[username]" icon in the left lower
bar in a Finder window in column view.



When you find the right Office X Identities folder, there may be only one
subfolder within it, called "Main Identity", or whatever you might have
renamed your identity to (like your name) within Entourage. Or - if you have
several identities, they'll all be there, each in its own folder. You never,
ever want to break up these separate identity folders - always keep each one
together. If wanting to transfer just one identity to another computer, you
could move just the "Main Identity" to the equivalent place in Office X
Identities on the other computer. But it's simpler to transfer the whole
Office X Identities folder. (Some people even transfer the whole Microsoft
User Data folder.)

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

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PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X.
It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.