Double Personal Folders in Outlook 2003 Pro ...

[Baram Sagari]

This is the second time that this has happened to me!
Based on the exchanged email, I understand I should have imported it
differently!
However, it is there now. How can I get rid of it?

I UnInstalled Office, and reinstalled it, I tried repairing it, but the
problem seems to persist.

Because I have several other folders, having a duplicate Personal FOlders,
that contains exactly the same information as the first, is confusing,
annoying at best.

What are my options to get rid of it, please - YES, I WILL IMPORT
DIFFERENTLY IN THE FUTURE.

Again, I UnInstalled - and reInstalled, but it stayed on my machine.
Should I TOTALLY UnInstall Office? If so, HOW? The normal UnInstall feature
seemed to work and in fact I was without Word, or EXCEL, but after the
installation, Outlook seemed to have been restored!

Also, I have nearly 12 accounts for 12 different companies where I do some
maintenance work. It is so tedious to reenter all these with the required
port information and logins and passwords, etc. How does Outlook EXPORT
these? USMT did not seem to record that information!

Any suggestions?

Cheers,
Baram

 

[DL]

OL stores account info in the registry, there are some third party apps that
will backup account info, enabling a restore.

Niether Import or Export is reccommended for a pst, with OL closed simply
copy the pst, and within OL File>Open>Data File.
(Do not overwrite any existing pst)

Currently your Profile is corrupted, Create a new one, add your data Files &
Accounts, using Mail Applet in the Control Panel.

 

[Baram Sagari]

Well ... actually that is what I, just because it was so much easier, had
done before. The volume had grown to a few gig that I had to use Import to
avoid duplicates and ironically, I did not get duplicate messages, I GOT THE
WHOLE THING DUPLICATED

How do others merge mail .pst files?
I have a few now, which I am so confused as to what is what.
Any advice?

 

[DL]

As stated don't use Import/Export to move data between pst's
In OL copy from one pst to the other
If necessary start with a clean/empty pst and copy relevant data to that
I personally Archive by year, ie I have seperate archive pst's for each year

 

[Bahram]

Clarifications:
Yes, I now understand that Import may cause Duplication of the profile.
However, given the volume of the data, as well as the fact that they are
backups of PST files, and consequently OVERLAP, there is little choice.

Translation: I backed up the pst file (not archive, but actual file copy)
for June, then the whole think in July, then the whole thing in September,
then a couple of going back and forth and copying messages between the
backedup files, then ...

I now have 8-10 files, nearly 5 GB, of Personal1.pst and Personal2.pst and
Personal3.pst .... that they OVERLAP and need to be merged! It is not that
one ends, and the other starts, the overlap and they have messages in the
middle that the other does not have, as well as NOTES, CONTACTS, etc.

It is a mess!
The only solution, that I could think of and will not do again, was to use
the import feature.

How else can you MERGE a number of these files ...???!!!!

Cheers,
Baram

 

[DL]

Natively, within OL you cannot merge, excepting by copying data between.

Your problem, seems to me to be caused by your 'backup' strategy.

I would think your only solution is to create a clean pst then manually copy
relevent data.
Then in future use the archive option, and backup the pst's.
The backup is intended to recover after a data loss, it is not designed to
be an archive, which I believe is the cause of all your problems.

You could I guess create a new pst, then Import excluding duplicates, to
this. Once done create a new profile and connect initially only this new
data file.
You can have, and keep, the archive pst's open within OL.

 

[Bahram]

I was hoping based on the posted replies you would recognize that I know the
"obvious". What you don't seem to understand is the volume of data that does
not lend itself to "Manua" work. I also am merging these files not because my
back up strategy was good or bad, because these PST files ALSO belong to
multiple people, and their back ups, and of course, my own "Bad" back up.

Here is how I worked around the problem: I Created a VPC, installed Outlook,
without creating any identies, imported EVERYTHING with NO DUPLICATE option
on, which by the way TOOK FOR EVER, and at then end, copied the final PST
file to my REAL outlokk folder.

It was a bit of work, but it was a lot less tedious than copying several
thousand files, and it worked

Thank you for your comments.

Cheers,
Bahram Over and Out.